I’m a children’s book writer and illustrator. I’m on a mission to save vintage children’s books, and I’m trying to alert all the people who might care about them. Under a new U.S. law that went into effect in February (the CPSIA or toy lead law), it is now illegal to sell or give away (and technically also distribute from a library though ALA is advising libraries to wait and see if the law changes) any children’s books printed in 1984 or earlier, with an exception for a small number of adult-only collectibles. The problem is that prior to 1985, there was sometimes a small amount of lead in the inks used to print books – but most books are lead-free and those that aren’t are only dangerous to people who eat them. Nonetheless, there is no way to tell if a book is lead-free without using digestive testing, which is both expensive and destroys the book, so the old books aren’t supposed to be sold.

You can learn more about this law and how it affects children’s books at overlawyered.com, bookroomblog.com, heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com, amendthecpsia.com, and my blog, doodlesandnoodles.blogspot.com, as well as from articles in Publisher’s Weekly (here’s the link to the most recent article about it – you can get to their others from there: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6648646.html?nid=2788)

Sorry for such a long, intrusive post. But if more people don’t join the fight, old books are just going to gradually fade away. Congress so far is not interested in making any changes to the law.

Thanks.