You can find Christian nonfiction books in homeschool circles.
There are actually plenty of them.

Then comes all the other stuff. As I was spending several more hours looking for books for my son I was asking myself the same thing: How do I get more books with a Christian worldview into my local library? I don’t know. Maybe if bloggers like these folks could identify the way to do it (e-mail the purchasing departments?) then we could it. Maybe we need a top 5 list every month that we can send that have professional reviews.

For now I’ll continue to search the Web, identify books and they buy them from either Amazon or the publishers. NOTE TO PUBLISHERS: I would buy a lot more books direct if you offered free shipping. Skip the authors signature, I’m not going to keep these books in pristine condition for 50 years until they might be worth something. My son is going to read them, beat them up and then loan them to his friends.

http://www.dove.org/reviewpopup.asp?Unique_ID=6084

I’m going to find the first book at the local library for my 11 year old son. He is more into fantasy but he may like them.

You know what is even harder to find than good Christian fiction, good Christian non-fiction. That whould make a great discussion topic. Sure non-fiction is about facts and facts are worldview neutral, or are they? Where do I find Christian non-fiction?

I guess that Jay hasn’t read Littluns and the book of darkness. Google littluns book and you will find all sorts of information on it. Ever since I read it, it has stuck with me. What a story and imagination. Although the animation makes it fantasy, but real life from the past, present and future makes it something other than fiction. Don’t worry mom’s about it being appropriate for children. It won 2 GOLD Awards from Mom’s Choice. I hope you read it Jay. It may even change your life!

I call their target demographic “Born-Again Bored Housewives”.

For the past couple of decades the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association houses have been considered the definitive source of Christian fiction of any kind. — Cyn

And their pitch sheets all read “Bonnet Romance”, “Altar-call Ending ROmance”, “Just like fill-in-the-blank, except CHRISTIAN (TM)!”, and/or “Just like Left Behind, except…”

Perhaps, at a local level, we could run workshops with pre-teen/ junior high kids, getting them to create their own stories or act them out. It is building in small doses but it is necessary.

We cannot avoid building things at “grassroots level.”
Isn’t that why churches are failing: striving to build big and
using less of the personal approach?

I can address these questions although I am not sure the answers will be very interesting or helpful!

Libraries: As one can well imagine, librarians don’t have the time to read or even skim through each and every new book that is published. They rely on recommendations. Here in the U.S. those recommendations come from journals such as BookPage, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly.

None of these journals (whether print or online) will review any self-published book, any book that uses print-on-demand technology, or book which is published by a house that doesn’t use a large distributor. (Or so they say. They make exceptions all the time, for instance, most university presses use POD technology for printing as well some imprints of larger publishing houses. It makes economic sense for them and the journals forgive them.)

If the journals won’t review the books, then likely the library won’t run across the title.

The big brick and mortar bookstores like B&N and Borders (Chapters and Indigo books in Canada) are a slightly different story. They have shelving for a limited number of books and they are in the business of making a profit. Most of the new Christian speculative fiction comes from small traditional presses — companies that don’t have the same economies of scale to draw from when marketing. While larger houses spend very little to market individual authors (exceptions would be for the Dekkers and Kingsburys) they spend to market their entire catalogue of titles. They can reach the bookstores economically while small presses are lucky if their books are added into local stores as “local authors.”

There is another aspect that keeps small press books from bookstore and library shelves (though books can always be special-ordered in): politics of the Christian book industry. For the past couple of decades the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association houses have been considered the definitive source of Christian fiction of any kind. If a book isn’t published from one of these houses, then it carries a stigma: if an ECPA member doesn’t like it, it is likely not really Christian. This myth is perpetuated by the ECPA and subscribed to by many—including bookstores and buyers.

Though the above saddens me, it is related without bitterness. If we (small presses and the buying public) want to see more Christian speculative fiction on bookshelves and in libraries, we will have to do the legwork involved. Anyone up for it?