Q: One thing I wanted to ask ... you have had a considerable part in shaping your juvenile department.
--My question may seem a little ... cool.... Do you prepare your juvenile titles with the children themselves in view--the ultimate consumers?
--The question's quite proper. I am glad you asked it--it goes straight to the heart of a big trouble about children's books.... The children themselves in view, eh? The ultimate consumers.... No. I am sorry to say, we do not. We can't. Because children do not buy books.... You see, a juvenile, like any other book on our list, has to please the person that's likely to buy it. And that means, a book to please adults--a book that a grown-up will mark down as something a child ought to like. _Ought_ to, you see--the adult's judgment, not the child's. We can't get past it. We can't find out what the child really _does_ like. When children rally to an author, or a style of book, then we get a glimpse of the children's state of mind. But that is our only contact.... All our _new_ ventures have to be baited and primed to catch the fancy of the mothers and the cousins and the aunts--_against_ the interests of the ultimate consumer, you might say, when that is necessary. Sometimes a juvenile runs to large sales purely on the strength of adult appreciation alone, like Ferdinand, for instance.... If it were possible, there is nothing I should like better than to deal with the children direct. I have children of my own. I think I understand them ... to a certain extent. I think I could please them. Once or twice--this is a confession--I did take a direct hand--made a couple the way I thought they ought to be. _My_ judgment against the child's, eh?... Complete failures--drugs.... I couldn't move them--couldn't get past the censor--couldn't sell the grown-ups.
--Have you ever thought of ways for getting into direct touch with the children?
--I can see no practicable way. As the case stands you can't penetrate the Adult Front Line.
Q: This scheme of Mr. McG.'s for a different kind of book--what do you think of it?
--If he can _control_ his "decline from a high estate" I am with him, emphatically. Books need to be cheaper. Books _vis-à-vis_ market certainly need to be studied all over again--from a new base line. I agree with his findings about shabby-genteel. And I'm sure that I'd like his "cheap" books much better than the kind I buy now, _if_ he can liven them up as he suggests. The question is, can he stop his "strategic retreat" at the right point? It's like inflation: easy to start, but...! He drops the standard of material and process--will his proofreading go down hill too?... Many French books in paper wrappers--made at the lowest cost-level, badly printed on cheap paper--have an air and a style that our own more expensive affairs can't quite achieve. _Somebody_ laid a finger on them. Who, in Mr. McG.'s scheme, is to be this somebody whose touch creates liveliness and interest? A highly important factor in the product!... If we _can_ get the liveliness and interest, we will be glad to trade more expensive paper and printing to get it. Our books are pretty dull.... But, _just_ inferior printing on cheap paper, _without_ the lively touch and style, is going to bore us worse yet!