My frustration with the PR department for Harper Collins Children's Books is boundless. I have written about this before (more than once) but in the past week I have been deluged by so many unrequested HC books that my frustration with this publisher is reaching epic levels. I have sent emails requesting that I be removed from their automated mailing list but no such luck; I can't even get anyone to respond to me let alone explain how I ended up the dumping ground for everything Harper Collins wants reviewed (regardless of my own preferences).

We're talking FORTY-FIVE unrequested books on my doorstep this year already.

The irony, as I have explained before, is that there are HC titles I do want to review but the PR department, while it does send out the catalogs each season, does not permit review copy requests. So the few HC titles I do want to review either end up here by dumb luck (four of them) or the authors contact me and have them sent my way (two others). Beyond that, I just take what HC sends me - and I promptly put it into a bag of donations.

Beyond how annoying this is for me (and counter productive for them) there is also the weirdness of books I receive. From the nonsense mailing of picture books for Kung Fu Panda and Prince Caspian to the shock of a hardcover edition of the new Coraline graphic novel (it's gorgeous but really - does Gaiman need to be sent out to reviewers? I'm sure I'll write about this one but it makes me think of how many authors no one has heard of that I wish I could have written about as well.) (I suppose this means that Terry Prachett's new YA novel, Nation and The Illustrated Wee Free Men are on the way here as well.)

Anyway, as I've had a bit of luck in the past by posting about books I wish I could review, I thought that would be my new method with HC. They send the catalogs, ignore my interests, seek to overwhelm me with books I'll never read and I will just post a handy list here every season and hopefully an author or illustrator will find my site and get the book sent my way.

One can only hope.

So, without further ado, here are the titles in the Fall Harper Collins Children's Catalog that piqued my interest:

Ida B. Wells: Let the Truth Be Told by Walter Dean Myers, Illustrated by Connie Christensen. Wells was on the early end of the fight for Civil Rights (she died in 1931) and completely fascinates me. I also think she has been woefully overlooked by most history textbooks so seeing Myers write a biography of her makes me quite happy. Here's a Wells quote:

"Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense."

The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger. Well, she's fabulous. Berger does the loveliest collage illustrations; really really nice stuff. This is a story of autumn and one little leaf who is holding on tight to the tree and doesn't want to let go. She never disappoints and I'm sure this is a quiet beauty.

Tell the World, by WritersCorps, Foreword by Sherman Alexie. This is a collection of "...poems written by at-risk youth, all of whom have participated in poetry-writing workshops sponsored by the non-profit WritersCorps." It's poetry and teens; it needs to be widely reviewed.

This will, I promise, be the last time I speak of Harper Collins until the Spring catalogs arrive.