In 1997, children’s book editor Arthur A. Levine was at a book fair in Bologna, Italy. A representative from the English publisher Bloomsbury made a “reluctant offering” to him, unsure if it would suit his needs, reported NPR. Levine, who had just started his own imprint at publishing giant Scholastic, read the book—and the rest was magic. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was published in the U.S. on September 1, 1998, and added to the story’s British success to help make Harry an international triumph. The book had an initial print run of 50,000 copies and has now sold more than 180 million copies in the U.S. and over 500 million worldwide, translated into 80 languages, Scholastic yesterday noted on its website.
Levine is also a gay dad—and while his imprint publishes more than just LGBTQ-inclusive books, such books are something he has certainly thought about. He spoke with After Elton (now part of Logo) in 2007 about the state of queer-inclusive children’s books, noting that not only will a certain percentage of children grow up to be gay or lesbian, but “an even higher percentage of picture book readership will grow up to know and love somebody who’s gay or lesbian.” This means, he said, “a large percentage of your picture book audience can really benefit from naturalizing the idea that there are gay and lesbian people in the world. When you think about it that way, it’s even more of a mystery why there aren’t more of these books.” (Keep in mind that this was over a decade ago; I’d like to think he’d say the same today about the full LGBTQ spectrum.)
The financially-driven children’s publishing industry, however (where color printing means higher costs), “makes for even more conservatism on the part of publishers,” and many will assume a queer-inclusive picture book won’t sell well, Levine said. Additionally, school libraries and book clubs may be more reluctant to stock the book for fear some parents will protest.
Levine observed, however, that in order to overcome these challenges, we need “books with great stories and illustrations that editors and booksellers are willing to champion.” He also spoke to the need, as I and others have also pointed out, for stories that aren’t “about” being queer but “are just wonderful real stories that happen to have gay and lesbian characters in them.” On a personal note, he added:
I’m hyper-alert in bookstores looking for the book that might include our family. I’d buy anything that remotely reflected us, partly because I would want to make a vote with my pocketbook. I want to say, ‘Whoever you are in that publishing house who pushed this through, I am supporting you.’
Levine himself has contributed to the genre of LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books with his 2011 Monday Is One Day
Scholastic is a behemoth, and it’s probably wrong to credit Levine with everything LGBTQ related (good or bad) at the company, but I will note that Scholastic has come to be one of the major children’s publishers most reliably putting out LGBTQ-inclusive content—so much so that earlier this year they provoked the wrath of One Million Moms, a project of the American Family Association, which has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Levine will likely always be best known, though, for his role in bringing Harry to our shores. Check out (below) the new video that Scholastic released yesterday in celebration of two decades worth of magic. They’re also releasing a new special edition boxed set of all seven Harry Potter books, redesigned by Caldecott Medallist Brian Selznick. (They aren’t available quite yet, alas.)
If you’re a purist like me, you may take issue with Levine over some of the changes made to author J.K. Rowling’s British text for the U.S. editions, especially turning the “Philosopher’s Stone” of the British edition into the “Sorcerer’s Stone.” Levine had objected to “Philosopher’s,” thinking it too arcane or misleading for U.S. audiences, according to Rowling biographer Philip W. Errington. He apparently suggested “Harry Potter and the School of Magic” instead. Rowling didn’t like that, and proposed “Sorcerer’s”—but said later that she wished she’d stuck with her original. Despite the changes, though (magical or Muggle-headed—you decide), Levine recognized the initial allure of the book and deserves much credit for its overall success.
Raise a butterbeer to him, then, in appreciation of his contribution to one of the biggest literary and cultural phenomena of all time.
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