Consolidated sales at Borders Group in the first quarter ended May 1 fell 15.4%, to $542.4 million. The net loss was $64.1 million, compared to a net loss of $86 million in the same period a year ago.

Sales at U.S. stores open at least a year fell 11.4%. The company noted that it has "substantially reduced the music and movies categories to a more tailored assortment, and factoring out multimedia, comparable store sales in the domestic segment decreased 6.8% during the quarter." The company has continued to emphasize "higher margin book, cafe, kids and gifts and stationery merchandise."

Capital expenditures in the quarter more than doubled to $5 million, "focused on the development of the Borders eBook store on Borders.com and the integration of the company's small format stores into the Borders superstore computer system, an investment Borders Group made to merge all stores into a single platform."

Borders closed six stores during the quarter and now has 680 U.S. stores, down from 894 a year ago. Most of the store closings took place in the last quarter of the last fiscal year.

In a statement, Borders Group interim president and CEO Mike Edwards commented: "Our top line remained challenged during the first quarter, yet we were able to soften the impact on our bottom line through continued cost controls."

 

At the Abrams booth, that's Jason Wells--director, publicity and marketing, for Abrams Books for Young Readers and Amulet Books--perched atop the keyboard of a, well, monumental typewriter created by Kevin O'Callaghan. The piece was originally part of an exhibition at Grand Central Terminal, but this week it is being re-purposed to highlight the October release of Monumental: The Reimagined World of Kevin O'Callaghan by Deborah Hussey.

 

Who's reading e-books? Bowker's v-p of publishing services Kelly Gallagher offered a sneak peek at the latest findings from the Book Industry Study Group's third fielding of "Consumer Attitudes toward E-Book Reading," which will be released in July.

"We're beginning to look now at some real exponential growth," said Gallagher, adding that since 2006, e-books have steadily risen from 1.5% to 5% of the total market, with a very steep gain during the past year.

He stressed the substantial presence of male e-book readers (51%), and also noted the iPad's dramatic early impact. Although the number one e-book device is still the computer (37%), the latest figure represents an 11% decline since the first fielding in November, 2009. Amazon's Kindle is number two at 32% (10% gain), but lurking in seventh place is the iPad at 3%, despite the fact that the survey was conducted just three weeks after its release. We'll have detailed coverage of the BISG study soon.

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Spring(field) Fever: Long lines of fans queued up to meet Rick Springfield and have their picture taken with the pop icon (among them romance author Terri Brisbin). He was there to tout his memoir, Late, Late at Night (Touchstone, October), in which he shares the story of his years in music, film and television and discusses his lifelong battle with depression.

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"Real life is too extreme for fiction. I second that. Big time."--Sarah Ferguson, speaking at the Book & Author Breakfast yesterday, where she introduced  authors Cory Doctorow, Mitali Perkins and Richard Peck.

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Stephanie Anderson left the show floor with more than galleys and swag. The manager of WORD in Brooklyn, N.Y. (and Shelf Awareness Namastechnology columnist) received a makeover by Bobbi Brown make-up artist Mark Hopkins. Cosmetics guru Brown was on hand, too, in the Chronicle Books booth to promote her latest tome, Beauty Rules: Fabulous Looks, Beauty Essentials, and Life Lessons for Loving Your Teens and Twenties (August).

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Paying tribute to a reader of a different sort. During a "Get Caught Listening" presentation at the Midtown Stage yesterday, bestselling author Nelson DeMille praised Scott Brick, the actor who narrates his audiobooks, saying, "I get as much fan mail now about Scott as I do me." DeMille joked that when people tell him what a great job Brick did as narrator, he wants to say, "Excuse me. I wrote the book."

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Turning 40: Hard to believe, but Garry Trudeau (at left, signing posters for a long line of fans) has been drawing Mike Doonesbury, B.D and the gang for 40 years. This fall, Andrews McMeel will release the deluxe, slipcased 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective, a collection of 1,800 of those strips plus essays by the author. 

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Sports broadcaster Len Berman joked with fans and signed his forthcoming The 25 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky, September).

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Busy Day at BEA:At lunchtime, Kathryn Stockett gave a speech thanking indie booksellers for their support as she accepted the Adult Debut Book of the Year Award for The Help at the Indies Choice Book Awards (see more on the awards below). Later in the afternoon, she signed books in the Penguin booth. Fans were served generous slices of caramel cake while they waited on line.

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This happy quartet from Houston's Blue Willow Bookshop says, "Get thee to Cookshop!" They dined at Cookshop (156 Tenth Ave. at 20th St.; 212-924-4440) on Monday night after reading the recommendation in Monday's issue of the Shelf.

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The incredibly prolific James Patterson signed Witch & Wizard: The Gift, the next book in his YA fantasy series, which he co-wrote with Ned Rust. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will release it in December.

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The "Nonfiction for Kids & Teens" panel discussed how to raise the profile of nonfiction in stores, schools and libraries. At right at Jennifer Brown, moderator and children's editor for Shelf Awareness; Laura Godwin, v-p and publisher of Holt Books for Young Readers/Macmillan; Angela Carstensen, head librarian at New York's Convent of the Sacred Heart and chair of the 2010 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction; Steve Sheinkin, children's book author; and Elizabeth Bluemle, president of the ABC and co-owner of Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, Vt.

 

Penguin will once again sell its new titles for the Kindle e-reader, Reuters reported, noting that "since April 1, about 150 of Penguin's new books have [been] unavailable for the Kindle."

"We have reached an agreement with Amazon and we are pleased that a full selection of our books will be available on the Kindle," David Shanks, CEO of Penguin Group (USA), said in a statement. Terms of the deal were not revealed.

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Shifting the focus away from choosing which e-reading device to buy, the Wall Street Journal explored the options involved in deciding the equally important question of "which e-bookstore to frequent."

"Reading devices like the iPad, Kindle and Nook will come and go, but you'll likely want your e-book collection to stick around. Yet unlike music, commercial e-books from the leading online stores come with restrictions that complicate your ability to move your collection from one device to the next. It's as if old-fashioned books were designed to fit on one particular style of bookshelves. What happens when you remodel?" the Journal wrote.

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When Demaris Brinton and Theron O’Connor moved from California to Bayfield, Wis., they "were looking for a place that was meaningful to us. We were looking for a beautiful natural setting with good resources and community life, and lots of beautiful, fresh, clean water. We wanted to simplify our life and live closer to the earth."
 
Not only did they find that place, but Bayfield also reaped its own rewards when they decided to open a new indie bookstore, Apostle Islands Booksellers, the County Journal reported.

"Opening a bookstore seemed like a natural thing for us to do," Demaris said. "Bookstores are a representative of the place you are visiting. It is a place you can come to get a sense of the community."

"We are trying to represent what you would see in a big bookstore but smaller amounts of it that are very carefully selected," Brinton added. "We don't see ourselves in competition with the big stores."

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A Cook County judge ruled that Barbara's Bookstore, Oak Park, Ill., "must pay its landlord more than $126,000 in back rent, taxes and legal fees," according to Chicago Tribune, which added that the "landlord for Barbara's Bookstore, Anthony Shaker, filed an eviction suit against the business last fall when several months' rent was not paid in 2009. Barbara's Bookstore countered that it had been double billed for taxes for years and did not owe the rent." Owner Don Barliant had said previously that the Oak Park store would close this summer and relocate.

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A survey of 17,000 schoolchildren by the National Literacy Trust found that "85.5% of pupils had their own mobile phone, compared with 72.6% who had their own books," the Telegraph reported.

"Our research illustrates the clear link with literacy resources at home and a child's reading ability, as well the vital importance of family encouragement," said Jonathan Douglas, NLT director. "By ensuring children have access to reading materials in the home and by encouraging children to love reading, families can help them to do well at school and to enjoy opportunities throughout their life."

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Worried about shoplifters in your bookshop? In the Independent, London bookseller Anna Goodall shared her experiences and observations on the prowl for book thieves.

"Somewhat naively, as a new bookseller, I didn't think theft would be a big problem," she wrote. "I imagined my biggest difficulty would be being able to keep up with our incredibly well-read customers."

Goodall soon found this was not the case. She also noticed that the books most often stolen "are at the more literary end of the spectrum. One feels that the thief is going to take them home and read them, not just dump them in the bin in a post-klepto depression. Paris Review Interviews Vol. 2 and Crime and Punishment was a rather intellectual haul just the other week. So is it only thrilling to steal quality literature?"

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NPR's What We're Reading list this week includes The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson, Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender.

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The Daily Beast's editor-in-chief Tina Brown joined NPR's Morning Edition to discuss her Must-Reads "about privacy--how much we have of it, and the perils of losing it."

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Tony Parsons, author of Men from the Boys, the final installment of his Harry Silver trilogy, selected his "top 10 troubled males in fiction" for the Guardian.

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Towel Day. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans celebrated the late Douglas Adams's life by carrying "the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have"--a towel--on May 25, the Guardian reported.

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Book trailer of the day: The Passage by Justin Cronin (Ballantine), featured in Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life blog. 

 

Authors who won the Indies Choice Book Awards yesterday celebrated independent booksellers at the ABA's Celebration of Bookselling luncheon:

"One of the best riches is how children respond to the book. They're not just reading, but finding out about the African Serengeti, for example."--Jerry Pinkney, author of The Lion & the Mouse, winner of the best new picture book award.

"Thank you so much for your personality, perseverance and passion."--Marla Frazee, illustrator of All the World, a new picture book honoree.

"Bookstores are my synagogues and temples, places of huge happiness."--Judith Viorst, author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, one of the three new members of the picture book hall of fame. She also spoke of her youngest son, Alexander, now in his 40s, "with a wonderful wife and three children," who no longer has terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.

"I'm a huge fan of independent bookstores. Once I compared you to Iggy Pop--more alive, badder, still around despite everything."--Libba Bray, author of Going Bovine, a young adult honor book.

"You know where your light switches are. Thank you for the darkness and for bringing light every day."--Scott Westerfield, author of Leviathan, a young adult honor book, after noting that when he was on a book tour and needed to have lights dimmed for a presentation, chain store staff seemed to have problems turning down the lights.

"When Speak came out 10 years ago, I thought I knew how important you were, but then I really learned."--Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Wintergirls, a young adult honor book. (Although for many of us, she's better known as "Stephanie's mom.") Anderson also mentioned her favorite local store, River's End Bookstore, Oswego, N.Y., "which has lifted up the town."

"The wind at my back is IndieBound."--Gayle Forman, author of If I Stay, a young adult honor book.

"The premises of my books require a different sort of handselling because they're unpleasant."--Suzanne Collins, author of Catching Fire, winner of the young adult book of the year.

"Thanks to Haines & Essick bookstore, Decatur, Ill., for letting me read."--Richard Peck, author of A Season of Gifts, a middle reader honor book, recalling difficulties he had as a child finding challenging books.

"Thanks to you I get to go home on Friday and work on Al Capone 3."--Gennifer Choldenko, author of Al Capone Shines My Shoes, a middle reader honor book.

"My mom loved to go to [Womanbooks in New York City] and have her consciousness raised by the women behind the counter while I read feminist literature for children, such as Harriet the Spy, which changed me significantly."--Rebecca Stead, author of When You Reach Me, middle reader book of the year.

"Something that's harder than finding an ancient lost city is getting people interested in a book by a first-time author.... Thank you for believing in The Lost City of Z and for believing in the power of books."--David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z, the adult nonfiction book of the year.

"Tinkers was handsold from the very beginning."--Paul Harding, author of Tinkers, an adult debut honor book. He thanked his editor and booksellers, including Michele Filgate of RiverRun Bookstore, Portsmouth, N.H.

"What an incredible day. What an incredible year.... It was a slow start with 60-plus rejections--just from agents. I was prepared for no success at all.... Visiting independent bookstores across America--what an experience!"--Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, adult debut book of the year.

"Booksellers can change lives, and they did."--Kate DiCamillo, most engaging author, recalling a bookseller who, when she was eight and adored Abraham Lincoln, handsold her mother a Lincoln biography and, for no apparent reason, The Cricket in Times Square, both of which she loved.

"This is a riddle that doctors use but it applies to you, too. Question: What treatment in an emergency is administered by ear? Answer: Words of comfort."--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone, adult fiction book of the year. He also thanked the staff at Prairie Lights, Iowa City, Iowa, whom he befriended while at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, for being "my instructors" about writing and "putting many books in my hands."

"This is the last BEA event this year I cover by offering mainly direct quotations from the speakers."--John Mutter

 

Highlights from the ABA town and annual meetings yesterday:

For the first time in living memory, bookstore membership in the ABA rose from year to year, to 1,410 from 1,401. Provisional memberships, an indicator of potential store openings, also rose, to 127 from 110. Overall membership dropped to 1,855 from 1,880, mainly because of a decrease in associate memberships to 282 from 324.

There was a new mood of e-confidence at the ABA meetings. Many people praised the ABA deal with Google to sell Google Editions, the program that should begin this summer that allows consumers to buy e-books and read them on any platform except Amazon's Kindle. As Bill Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif., said, "Google Editions puts independents in a position they haven't been in in a long time--we're on the cutting technological edge."

Petrocelli, who praised the ABA leadership and staff for making the association into "effective organization," also encouraged "as many people as possible" to use ABA's IndieCommerce site, which continues to be improved. It's important, he continued, because the site shows "the rest of the world we really are serious about selling e-books."

Besides Google, ABA continues to meet with major companies and publishers about possible partnerships and to discuss issues of mutual interest. Board member Steve Bercu, owner of Bookpeople, Austin, Tex., described the meetings with publishers as "more collegial these days."

ABA president Michael Tucker of Books Inc., with headquarters in San Francisco, Calif., noted that the association is preparing for and seeing "opportunities that have not been available in 20 years" that will help create a level playing field among book retailers. These include the agency model sales plan and the ability of members to sell e-books. He pointed to the indies' special strength: "We curate. We bring something no one else brings, and now some larger players and publishers know it. I think we will be ready for whatever comes with e-anything."

ABA v-p Becky Anderson of Anderson's Bookshops in Downers Grove and Naperville, Ill., added, "We have showplaces, physical places for books. It's still the Wild West but there are a lot of options. We can reach out in ways we never thought we could before."--John Mutter

 

"Everyone knows that it has to be done," said moderator Charlotte Abbott as she opened yesterday morning's session on e-strategies for authors and publishers. "The question is how to do it" in a timely, creative way that gets results.

Addressing an audience largely comprised of publishers, panelists Ron Hogan, curator of Beatrice.com, Jason Ashlock, principal at Movable Type Literary Group, and Kathleen Schmidt, director of publicity and digital media, Shreve Williams Public Relations, agreed on many things: building and maintaining an online author presence is necessary; it both drives and builds audience; it must be done with the purpose of engaging readers; and authors have to be in it for the long-term.

The key, the panelists agreed, is determining your goals and entering the world of Twitter, Facebook and blogging with a plan, a purpose and an agenda. Authors must know their goals. Is it to spread awareness? To brand yourself? To build your audience? "Build it and they will come," is wrong, Schmidt said. "You can't put content on the web today and just expect people to find it."

For Ashlock's Movable Type authors, the agency spends several weeks searching the Internet--Twitter, Facebook forums, Tumbler and elsewhere--to find where the relevant conversations are happening. "It's important to use the results you get in a very organic way," Hogan said. "As an author online, your long-term goal is to insert yourself into the conversation as a fascinating person who has something interesting to say."

No one likes the hard sell on Twitter, Schmidt concurred. "What you're doing as an author is engaging people there." "If you're going to have a presence online, you need it before publication, during publication and after publication," Schmidt said. The others agreed, citing bestselling authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner as examples of authors who use their websites and blogs to build, maintain and engage with their audiences.

How to best do it? An author’s website is home base, and daily Tweets, weekly newsletters, blogs, and Facebook forums are "your tentacles out into the community," Schmidt said. The goal is always to drive readers back to the home base, i.e., the author website. Hogan advises authors to use the time between contract and pub date to explore and build the online presence. "The six weeks before, during and after publication it's important to be online as much as possible," Schmidt said.

Some hands-on tips from the panel: use search.twitter.com to find conversations relevant to your author's topic; use Bit.ly and Google to track how people arrive at the author site. Ashlock added that have a new role in bringing authors, publishers and publicists together, serving "as the linchpin between all parties."

"It's important to remember at the end of the day that you want people to buy your book," Schmidt said. "Word of mouth is very powerful, and that's really what we're talking about here."--Laurie Lico Albanese

Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Peter H. Gleick, author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water (Island Press, $26.95, 9781597265287/1597265284).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Jeffrey Starr, co-author of Burger Parties: Recipes from Sutter Home Winery's Build a Better Burger Contest (Ten Speed Press, $19.99, 9781580081108/158008110X).

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Tomorrow on Hardball with Chris Matthews: Ben Bradlee and Quinn Bradlee, authors of A Life's Work: Fathers and Sons (Simon & Schuster, $19.99, 9780684808956/0684808951).

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Tomorrow on Tavis Smiley: Sebastian Junger, author of War (Twelve, $26.99, 9780446556248/0446556246).

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Tomorrow night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher: Jonathan Alter, author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781439101193/1439101191).

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Tomorrow night on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Jeffrey Ross, author of I Only Roast the Ones I Love: How to Bust Balls Without Burning Bridges (Gallery, $15, 9781439102794/1439102791).

Also on the Late Late Show: Jay Mohr, author of No Wonder My Parents Drank: Tales from a Stand-Up Dad (Simon & Schuster, $25, 9781439173213/1439173214).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this week from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Tuesday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, May 29

10 p.m. After Words. Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, interviews Sebastian Junger, author of War (Twelve, $26.99, 9780446556248/0446556246), in which he chronicles the experiences of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)

Sunday, May 30

12:45 a.m. Fred Thompson, actor and former Republican Senator from Tennessee, talks about his book Teaching the Pig to Dance: A Memoir of Growing Up and Second Chances (Crown Forum, $25, 9780307460288/0307460282). (Re-airs Sunday at 8:45 a.m.)

6 a.m. Newt Gingrich discusses his book To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine (Regnery, $29.95, 9781596985964/1596985968). (Re-airs Sunday at 10:45 p.m.)

9:30 a.m. At an event hosted by Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, Ariz., Jeffrey Kaye, author of Moving Millions: How Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration (Wiley, $27.95, 9780470423349/047042334X), examines the role global capitalism plays in international migrations. 

7 p.m. From BookExpo America, an interview with John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Company and author of Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider (Palgrave Macmillan, $27, 9780230102088/0230102085). (Re-airs Sunday at 11:30 p.m.)

7:30 p.m. From BookExpo America, a "CEO Panel: The Value of a Book--A Roundtable Discussion with Industry Leaders." Panelists include David Shanks, CEO, Penguin Group (USA); Skip Prichard, president and CEO, Ingram Content Group; Oren Teicher, CEO, American Booksellers Association; Bob Miller, group publisher, Workman Publishing; Esther Newberg, executive v-p, International Creative Management; and Scott Turow, author and incoming president, Authors Guild. The session is moderated by Jonathan Galassi, president, Farrar, Straus & Giroux. (Re-airs Monday at 6:30 a.m.)

Monday, May 31

10 a.m. Evan Thomas, author of The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 (Little, Brown, $29.99, 9780316004091/031600409X), recounts the lead-up to the Spanish-American War. (Re-airs Monday at 4 p.m. and 10 p.m., and Tuesday at 4 a.m.)

10:45 a.m. Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter talks about his book The Promise: President Obama, Year One (S&S, $28, 9781439101193/1439101191). Re-airs Monday, at 4:45 p.m. and 10:45 p.m., and Tuesday at 4:45 a.m.)

 

Tim Burton's 3D movie adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is on course to "become the sixth movie to cross $1 billion in worldwide boxoffice and the first spring release to do so," according to the Hollywood Reporter, which noted that the film has earned more than $332 million domestically and $667 million internationally.

"It's an amazing result," said David Kornblum, Disney v-p, international distribution. "Alice in Wonderland has reinvented the culture of cinema-going in a big way.... This was a truly unique result, given the time period, and validates that the movie business is a 52-week business." 

 

A Gloucestershire Old Spot pig will be renamed Solar at the Hay Literary Festival to honor Ian McEwan, whose novel of the same name won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize, awarded annually to a novel that best captures the comic spirit of P.G. Wodehouse, BBC News reported. The author will meet his book's porcine namesake Friday. He will also receive a jeroboam of champagne and a collection of Wodehouse's works.

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Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick's won both the €10,000 (US$12,319) Bisto Children’s Book of the Year and the €2,000 Bisto Honour Award for Illustration for her book There, Irish Publishing News reported.

Other Bisto winners were The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke (Eilís Dillon Award), Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd (Bisto Honour Award for Writing) and Chalkline by Jane Mitchell (Children's Choice Award). 

 

How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley (Riverhead Books, $25.95, 9781594487590/1594487596, June 15, 2010)

Opening lines of a book we want to read:

Show Me on the Doll

There is only one answer to the question: Would you like to see a three a.m. performance of amateur Portuguese circus clowns?

But as I sat in an open-air bar on my last night in Lisbon, drinking wine with my coat still on, I couldn't bring myself to give it. These weren't the universally frightening species of clown, the ones who are never not scary. No one likes a clown who reminds them of why they hate ice-cream-truck music. These were more the Cirque du Soleil-type clown. The attractive jesters found on the backs of playing cards. They had class. They had top hats. And I? I had a pocketful of change I couldn't count. I had paid for my wine in the dark by opening my hand and allowing the bartender to remove the correct coins, as if he were delousing my palm. It was the December before I turned thirty. I was in a place I had no business being. The last thing I needed was a front-row seat to some carnie hipster adaptation of Eyes Wide Shut.--Selected by Marilyn Dahl

Mickey Rapkin was always green with envy of the kids who had the opportunity to go to a summer camp like Stagedoor Manor. His memories of learning the J-stroke for canoeing and perfecting a smooth water entry from the diving board pale beside the welcome offered each of the 300 campers arriving for a three-week stay: the staff greets them with applause. Imagine, as Rapkin does, being a stage-struck kid and wondering, "Did I just die and go to heaven?"

Reporting on spending three weeks at Stagedoor Manor in the Catskills during summer 2009, Rapkin captures the personalities of kids who are hard-working, ambitious and aware of the camp's legacy. They revere the memory of artistic director Jack Romano (notorious for cursing out kids for messing up scenes--he was theatrical) and his credo: "Learn by doing age-inappropriate material." They talk worshipfully about celebrated alumni (Robert Downey, Jr., Jennifer Jason Leigh and Natalie Portman, among others) and dream of achieving equal renown. And they make real friends, maybe for the first time in their young, drama-obsessed lives.

These campers may still be kids (they range in age from 10 to 18) but they are also performers immersed in the life of the theater. Discussing his bad luck at auditions, one boy says, "I didn't think I was what people were looking for." When a young girl screams in the midst of a scene when her dress accidentally catches on fire, she complains, "I was angry with myself for breaking character."

Above all else, they are at the camp to enhance their talents, develop a work ethic and internalize advice, like that from Romano: "Here are the things you need to have considered before you get up and sing a song: Who are you singing to? What just happened? Why are you expressing this in this moment?" Still, they're age-appropriate rebellious. As Rapkin shows, they love to outrage authority; they gleefully tell him, "We were excited to get yelled at for not learning our lines."

Positively bursting with enthusiasm at being present at the creation of a staggering 14 productions, including six Stephen Sondheim musicals, Rapkin appears to have had as much fun as the kids putting on their shows. If he began in envy, he ends in gratitude; at long last, if a little late, he fulfilled his wish to attend such a camp (no baseball! no volleyball!).--John McFarland

Shelf Talker: An exuberant report on a theatrical-arts summer camp that will delight fans of Glee, Fame and High School Musical.