Nancy Paulsen Books launched its first hardcover list in Fall 2011. The imprint publishes approximately twenty books a year and focuses on picture books that are eye-opening and often funny, and fiction from diverse and distinct voices, especially stories that are inventive and emotionally satisfying. These are the kinds of books that are adopted by book clubs and that appear on state lists, generated by the votes of children.
Recent picture books include the New York Times bestsellers I Am Every Good Thing by Derrick Barnes and Gordon James and The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López, and Ezra Jack Keats Award winner Daniel Finds a Poem by Micha Archer. Fiction includes National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, Walter Award winner The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman, Christopher Award winner Tight by Torrey Maldonado, and New York Times bestsellers Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt and Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed.
Stacey Barney joined Nancy Paulsen Books for Young Readers as Associate Publisher in 2021. She edits a diverse list of award-winning and bestselling young adult and middle grade fiction as well as select picture books and nonfiction. Her list includes New York Times bestselling authors Krystal Sutherland, Renée Ahdieh, Katherine Arden, Ellen Hopkins and American Ballet Theater principal dancer Misty Copeland as well as Caldecott Honor-winning The Cat Man of Aleppo by Irene Latham and Karim Shamsi-Basha, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu.
