Dead Bunnies and Naked Bottoms. Meeting the Challenges of Children's Publishing Across Cultures

The love we feel for our children is universal. But the ways we raise our beloved children are specific to the cultures we live in. How we swaddle a newborn, how and what we feed a baby, where that baby sleeps, how we teach the child to use the potty, how we speak to that child as he or she grows, how we educate the child and introduce difficult subjects like death or divorce to them - all of our childrearing practices are embedded in cultural traditions that can feel non-negotiable, even eternal. Even our most closely held beliefs about the nature of childhood can start to destabilize when we view them through the lens of a different culture. For children's publishers working across international markets, this raises unique challenges as we acquire books that originate in disparate cultural practices and mindsets. How do we choose which books can travel across borders? How do we work with editors, artists, and writers to create respectful foreign editions that are true to the essence of the original, but work within our markets? What are the limits of cross-cultural adaptation? Join a distinguished panel of publishers, illustrators, and foreign rights professionals for a lively discussion of cross-cultural successes and failures, taboos and proscriptions, and the ongoing search for best practices as we navigate the international children's books market.