The ‘dwarsligger’ format of ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and ‘Looking for Alaska’ by John Green were released as ‘Penguin Minis’ in 2018 by Dutton Books, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House on 23 October 2018. In Penguin Random House’s website announcement on 13 August 2018, Penguin Random House detailed that 500,000 copies would initially go on sale. Jennifer Loja, President of Penguin Young Readers commented upon the decision of the publisher; “We know that young readers, especially, still prefer print books, but are drawn to the portability of reading on their devices. We want to be right there with them – on the go, for summer vacations, or as the perfect stocking stuffer. We can’t wait to see all the places the Penguin Minis will go.”.

The books, printed with a horizontal spine as opposed to a vertical spine and with 27 gsm super-thin, ‘onion skin’ paper, allow the reader to read with one hand by ‘swiping’ their thumb upwards, mimicking the gestured used on a smartphone. They are no bigger than a smartphone in size, with a softback cover.

‘Dwarsligger’ is a term comes from the Dutch words ‘dwars,’ or crossways, and ‘liggen,’ to lie, and also means a person or thing that stands out as different. Commissioned by Julie Strauss-Gabel, president of Dutton Books for Young Readers, this format, new for the publishing house, is a reaction to the interactions that young people display in order to read written content on their mobile phones. The dwarsligger format has existed in the Netherlands since its creation by Dutch publisher Royal Joengbloed in 2009, but its application to the US and UK markets, with a focus on young adults and teenagers and their lives interacting with smartphones and other devices, makes this a particularly interesting shift in the ways that physical media such as books are adapting to digital behaviours.

On 28 October 2018, the New York Times published an article detailing the announcement by Penguin Random House to publish in this non-traditional format for a reprint of four of young adult author John Green’s books, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, ‘Looking for Alaska’, ‘An Abundance of Katherines’ and ‘Paper Towns’.

The chosen books for acquisition are John Green’s ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and ‘Looking for Alaska’, two of Green’s bestselling titles. ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, published in 2012, was Green’s sixth, and bestselling young-adult novel, which currently has over 50 million copies in print. The choice of John Green in particular for the collection of the dwarsligger reflects the target audience that Penguin Random House (PRH) aimed for with this format - young adults and teenagers - who have been brought up with the smartphone as part of their daily lives. PRH worked with John Green to publish in this format; ““Like a lot of writers, I’m a complete nerd for book making and the little details that make a physical book really special,” Mr. Green said. “It didn’t feel like a gimmick, it feels like an interesting, different way to read.”

The Penguin Minis join the museum in compliment to a number of different objects, including Kim Kardashian ‘Selfish’ which collates the media personality’s ‘selfies’ including those from Instagram, and contributes to the Museum of Childhood’s growing collection representing the role of digital culture in young people and children.