Publisher’s Weekly has a great article today on the occupational hazards of working in children’s books. Check it out–very funny, and very telling.
For example, Beverly Horowitz, of Bantam Delacorte Dell Books for Young Readers:

My mother was close with her brother. He’d been seriously ill and finally died. Everyone from our family, of course, was at the funeral. We went from the service to the cemetery, and when it was over and people were starting to head back to their cars, I was walking with my mother when a woman she knew came up. “I’m so sorry, I knew you were very close,” she said. Then she asked, “Is that your daughter, the one in publishing?” When my mother said yes, it was, she said, “I thought I’d see her here with you. That’s why I have with me the manuscript I have always wanted to give to her.” She took it out of her purse and handed it to me. I was totally taken aback. As she smiled at me I said,