For its newest parenting title, Fine Lines Publishing wanted a winner--and found the perfect opportunity in the tried-and-true The New Magic Bookshelf, which deserved a good update after 10 years on the commercial and library markets and appearances in publications including The Los Angeles Times Book Review and Parenting's Baby Talk magazine.

Fine Lines found the perfect partner in parent and longtime journalist Janie McQueen, who originally co-authored The Magic Bookshelf under the name Janie Jarvis. Janie, who still carefully followed the children's book market, not only had scads more insight into kids' books and children's reading habits as her own boys grew, but was itching to incorporate the most exciting new juvenile titles that had come out since the initial book's publication--the revolutionary Harry Potter series, for example.

Meet the Author

Janie's lifelong fascination with children’s books includes a B.A. in English literature from the University of South Carolina and intensive studies in juvenile literature at Emory University in Atlanta. She has worked as a reporter for newspapers including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Greenville (SC) News, and as a speechwriter for the government of Taiwan.

Janie blogs about children's books and the kids' reading world for our website and is currently at work with her husband, Josh, on a book about teaching swimming to children. She has two super-reading boys, Riley Jarvis, 11, and Thomas Jarvis, 9 (pictured with their mom in the photo above); and twins on the way. They live, learn, write, and read good books together in Roswell, Georgia.

By the way, the book they're enjoying in the photo is Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends. (You can find it in our bookstore under Poetry Books.)

You can reach Janie here at the website at janie@magicbookshelfonline.com.

To contact us with any questions about children's books, helping improve children's reading lives, or The New Magic Bookshelf, click here.