Together again in these new times! by Combel’s Editorial Director
“Every year, Combel publishes many new books by best-loved authors and illustrators: children’s books designed to offer learning and fun alike, created following rigorous educational criteria. As publishers, we have always been aware of the real lives lived by our readers, meaning that now we cannot forget the effect that the lockdown and the easing of lockdown has had on our children.
What is certain is that this situation caught us all off guard: families, educators, booksellers and, of course, publishers too. We have all had to take on responsibilities that we hadn’t accounted for: suddenly, at home we have found ourselves acting as educators, cooks and IT specialists for our children. A round of applause for all these families! It has also felt strange to have to change our habits and routines due to schools closing down, and we have had to reinvent them so that the younger members of the family don’t feel disoriented and to maintain balance during this lockdown.
Nevertheless, at home we have also enjoyed the luxury of spending more time with our children: sharing things with them without needing to rush off, talking with them and finding out what makes them tick. We have been able to find moments to do new activities together, something that is usually so difficult to achieve.
During this time, it hasn’t been easy to be a children’s book publisher, but it has been rewarding. We have rediscovered the importance of telling stories and sharing unique and incomparable experiences.
We are all still feeling uncertain about what is happening, which makes us feel worried and affects our physical and mental health. Children sense this and it manifests itself in fears: of being infected and of losing their loved ones, and feeling afraid of the unknown.
During this period, we adults have been given time to reflect, to look inside ourselves, and we must not forget that… We should try, therefore, to create a secure environment in which children can put their concerns into words. Telling them stories and reading to them is a good pretext to help them express these worries and rediscover moments of shared happiness.
In addition, our ambition is to accompany you through these new times.”
New times, new books, new tools
In these new times for the publishers, we keep looking for new words, books and tools to shorten distances. That’s why we have originated a new blog on the Combel website to introduce our new Fall titles and forthcoming projects.
Each entry corresponds to a book or a series. All the titles have been grouped at the summary and also by categories on the menu bar for you to browse. But you can also search specific authors and illustrator, just introducing their names on the search bar.
If you prefer, you can look through the updated Foreign Rights guide. Given our hallmark are novelties and pop-up’s, we have decided to enrich the catalogue with links to videos so you can press the button icon and watch the videos.
We hope that these tools will be useful to you and will give you with ideas for a fresh start.
Happy browsing!
