Stephanie Barton, managing director of Penguin Children’s Books, says publishers in 2010 will go with “very traditional, no-risk purchases.”

(Does this mean no more, “Joined at Birth: The Lives of Conjoined Twins”?)

Oh come now, I don’t believe you, Steph. Somewhere sits a sneaky MSS, as in smart, as in subversive, as in prepping the soil to grow not turnips, but psychotomimetic unicycles.

Alt books for kids? Weird books, strange books, honest books–books you read as a child (or to your child) and then went, “What the fuck?”

“After a fall from an experimental aircraft, Cris Molina is stricken with an unusual brain malfunction: He sees everything wrong (shoes look like books and a shirt looks like a fifth century Ming vase).”

Like that.

Or, for your 12 year old…who may or may not be Doing It.

“Okay,” said Jonathan.  “The choice is this.  You either have to shag Jenny Gibson—or else that homeless woman who begs spare change outside Cramner’s bakers.”

Your selections?