Dr. Mary Manz Simon hosted a panel of industry leaders May 29 in the CBA children’s space at Book Expo America (BEA). The general-market publishing trade show was held May 29-31 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.

The expert panel included Laura Minchew (Tommy Nelson); Annette Bourland, group publisher of Zonderkidz; Mike Nawrocki, co-creator of VeggieTales and executive vice president of Big Idea Entertainment; and Dan Lynch, publisher B&H Kids. Panelists introduced their new titles to the librarians and general market retailers in attendance and spoke to trends impacting the market. Simon’s presentation included new data from Nielsen on the children’s religious market.

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) made arrangements with BEA for the panel. Mark Kuyper, president and CEO, said ECPA is “trying to drive awareness” through involvement at the annual show.

“We’re working with the education component of ABA [American Book Association] that is presented at Book Expo America,” Kuyper told Christian Retailing. “Last year we did a session on trends in Christian publishing and this year we focused in on kids.

“We bring together some of the publishers in this space, the publishers who focus in on and have a strong presence in the children’s market, to do a presentation to the audience there, which are retailers as well as industry professionals, to bring them up to speed to make them more aware of the product created by our industry and the potential that they have in taking advantage of those resources.”

Exhibitors at the convention included Moody Publishers, Worthy Publishing, Tyndale House Publishers, Ideals Publications, William B. Eerdmans, Harvest House Publishers and many others.

Simon also will present her 20th Children's Trends Workshop at the International Christian Retail Show in Atlanta this month. Learn more at christianretailshow.com.

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