When Australian book publishers recently met with their counterparts in North America, two topics dominated the discussion. The first was the legacy of COVID-19 shutdowns on reading rates, particularly among younger readers.

“Literacy rates are declining in children. Reading rates are declining in children,” explains Cathy Vallance, children’s publisher at the University of Queensland Press. “For those two years (during COVID), kids were taught at home and possibly didn’t get that foundation in literacy. They’re not where they really should be in terms of their reading. And so that is reflected in their reading ability, but also the type of books they read.”

Vallance says graphic novels have become increasingly popular with this demographic but are a stop-gap in terms of boosting reading comprehension. They are also expensive and time-consuming to produce.

“The hope is that with kids back at school, and with the production of more accessible books, it can hook them into reading a little bit more,” Vallance says. “We kept saying ‘this too shall pass’, that we’ll be able to get reading and literacy rates back on track.”

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The North America Publishers’ Program is an annual act of cultural diplomacy engineered by Creative Australia – the nation’s leading arts funding and advisory body. This year, the focus was on the production and promotion of books for children and young adults.

Vallance and seven of her Australian colleagues visited Toronto and New York to discuss every aspect of the publishing supply chain (rising postage costs included). As part of the trip, Vallance was able to meet face-to-face with Canadian and American publishers who have recently acquired the international rights to several UQP titles.

The Australian book industry generated $1.3 billion of sales in 2025, with children’s books making up about 30 per cent  of that figure. Vallance explains this isn’t the full picture, given the data does not capture school accounts, libraries and e-book sales.

The other item that dominated discussion during the North American tour was the book bans that have transformed libraries across the US. Remarkably, some of America’s most celebrated authors, including Judy Blume, Toni Morrison and Harper Lee, have been caught in the crossfire. A single formal complaint or “challenge” can result in a book being pulled from the shelves.

“That was discussed at almost every publishing house that we visited because it is such a devastating issue,” Vallance says. “Some publishing houses thought that it didn’t affect them too much in the sense that their books weren’t being taken up in those particular counties, anyway. But the actual effect is more on the lived experience of the people in those communities … the message that it sends to the community is that you are not welcome here.”

Vallance reads hundreds of manuscripts a year in order to choose the dozen or so titles that she and her colleagues will shepherd through to the bookshelf, such as the award-winning Leo and Ralph by Peter Carnavas.

The publisher initially studied creative writing at QUT and completed an internship at UQP. Following graduation, Vallance worked as an editor at John Wiley & Sons and at Steve Parish Publishing, where she began to specialise in books for younger readers. She was hired by UQP in 2012, focusing on their children’s and young adult list, and was appointed children’s publisher in 2024.

Occasionally, Vallance asks her two daughters for their thoughts on a manuscript. They do not hold back.

“It’s been good in terms of getting that feedback on how I can make this book look accessible and appealing to a child reader,” Vallance says. “I saw that from my own experience of a child going, ‘I don’t want to read that’ because the typesetting is overwhelming and there are too many words on the page. But then I’ve tried other things where I’ve gone, ‘What do you think of this setting?’ and she has said to me, ‘Oh, that looks like a baby book. The font’s too big’.”

Vallance has some sage advice for anyone wanting to produce a successful children’s book.

“I have very strong memories of my childhood. And although a lot of technology is quite different now, some experiences are universal to the childhood experience. So, I would say that’s the most important thing – remembering what it felt like to be a kid.”

uqp.com.au