Roxy Girl expands with books for girls ages 8-12

By Bettijane Levine
Los Angeles Times

In these complicated times, one group of people remains amazingly united in its opinions. Tween girls, those not-quite teenagers ages 8 to 12, seem to all want to wear their jeans low, their shirts short, and to shop only in a few trendy stores. And a good number of them probably have at least one Roxy Girl item in their closet.

Illustration by Jon Orque • The Honolulu Advertiser

Executives at the company decided to create a series of books — titles, characters, plots — right there in the company's Huntington Beach, Calif., headquarters. They hired an author of young-adult fiction to write the tales and make the books "good reading," and the whole package was sold to a major publishing house, HarperEntertainment, a division of HarperCollins.

Starting in May, these paperbacks aimed at pre-adolescents, called the Roxy Girl series, will be available in youth sections of bookstores and public libraries — with little cue to unsuspecting readers that the books were published as a way to help promote a fashion brand.

It's all so subtle. Even with the Roxy Girl name and heart-shaped logo on the front and back covers, it's hard to tell from looking at them that these novels of life and love among adolescent surfers are actually stealth advertisements.

"It's insidious and subversive," says Alissa Quart, author of the recent "Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers" (Perseus Publishing). "There should be a different way of creating characters in literature, rather than generating them from a brand name. There's a multibillion-dollar industry out there feeding off America's teens. The whole idea is repellent. If you're a 9-year-old today, you're entering a world where nothing you encounter is pure or generic. Everything is labeled and smacks of commerce," says the 30-year-old author.

The new series, aimed at girls 8 to 13, was the brainstorm of Danny Kwock, 41, and Matt Jacobson, 42, who head the year-old entertainment division of Roxy's parent company, Quiksilver, which took in $800 million in sales of board-sport fashions last year. They say parents have nothing to fear.

"These books are authentic. They're a great read, written by a good author," says Kwock, a father of four and a lifelong surfer. Jacobson adds: "We were sitting in the company cafeteria, talking to some girls who work here. Turns out they're all voracious readers, all members of book clubs and, of course, they all surf. They said they couldn't think of any good girls' fiction since those old series, like 'Sweet Valley High.' "

Kwock and Jacobson decided to fill the void with tales about surfing, while subtly giving a boost to their brand.

But concerned observers contend that the books are a guerrilla marketing tactic pitched at young people who have no idea they're being "pitched." Although the notion of promotional books isn't new — there are hundreds of examples in the marketplace — this is the first time a fictional series, billed as literature, has emanated from a company trying to sell clothes.

That's what bugs those purists who grew up believing that literature is a kind of holy creative pursuit. Something pure and magical that springs from an artist's imagination onto the printed page. Would Lewis Carroll or J.K. Rowling have written as creatively if their paychecks had come from companies with other products to sell? Would "Green Eggs and Ham" have been as entertaining if Dr. Seuss had been paid to write it by the American Pork Institute?

People who worry about these things are way behind the times, says Daniel Cook, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose specialty is children's consumer culture.

"The commodification of children has been going on for decades, although the format and intensity has changed and increased," he says. "No one ever says, 'We're doing this to shake the money out of kids' pockets.' What you hear is, 'We want to educate them, entertain them.' The latest ploy is the empowerment discourse. If you can empower a child in a wholesome way, there's very little for consumers to object to."

That works for Hope Innelli, editorial director of HarperEntertainment, which will publish the books to be called Luna Bay, the Roxy Girl series. With such titles as "Wave Goodbye" and "Pier Pressure," the books feature five 15-year-old girls, all best friends, who live and surf in the fictional seaside town of Luna Bay.

Innelli says her company will publish two books to start, and then one every month thereafter, "indefinitely."

The books will be promoted on Roxy's Web site and elsewhere on the Internet; they will be offered at surfing events that Roxy hosts around the world.

In turn, Roxy merchandise will be offered as part of the sweepstakes the publisher runs; the cover of "Pier Pressure," for example, exhorts readers to "win a free surfboard, see details inside."

Lantz, who has written the first three Roxy Girl books, says she was never pressured to promote a thing.

"When I started writing, I really wondered whether I should be putting their name in the book. Nobody ever said you will or you won't do that." So she didn't.

Lantz, 50, of Santa Barbara is a surfer and mother of a 10-year-old boy. She has written more than 30 books, mostly for middle-graders and teenagers. Among them, "Stepsister From the Planet Weird" (Random House, 1997), which was made into a feature film for the Disney Channel.

She has also written what she calls "very serious young-adult fiction. 'Someone to Love,' for example, was on the American Library Association list of best books for young adults."

Lantz is pleased with her work on the Roxy Girl series, although she had some doubts at first.

"When those thoughts arose, I dispelled them with logic. There are Pokemon books, and books promoting candy and toys and TV shows.

"The main thing is for kids to be reading. If it's entertaining, fairly well written, an interesting story where the characters change and grow and learn something, then I'm definitely all right with that."

She wouldn't have taken the job, she says, if the only purpose of the books was to get kids to buy Roxy products.

But assistant professor Cook isn't convinced.

"What's appalling and insidious about all this is the way a marketing mentality has seeped into all corners of life."

In the past, he says, "not everything we saw or owned had a brand logo and name. Nowadays, it starts at prelinguistic levels with exposure to ads and logos and brands and licensed characters."

But can marketers create books of literary merit? Los Angeles librarian Albert Johnson isn't that worried.

"It's high-interest material. We have it here to attract kids to the library. When we get them in, it's an opportunity to offer them something better."

He concedes that some librarians have "a difficult time" with such material in their collections. "They feel it's a dumbing down. But we have to deal with reality. And, with the state of reading nowadays, such material is necessary."

As for the Roxy Girl series, Johnson says, "I think you'll see more of this. It's the beginning of a trend."