Pros
Candlewick Press produces beautiful children's books, including literature, to very high standards. They are a beacon of light in the swirling mist of ebooks, web publishing, and ever lowering standards. Their books provide pleasure that a virtual book never could, and they go a long way to encouraging children young and old to love books. The offices are nice, and so are the people. There is a great work/life balance. Employees get a discount on Random House books as well as Candlewick titles. I was an intern so I'm not sure of the benefits. However, people seem to stay there for quite a long time so they're probably OK. From what I could tell as an intern, the politics didn't seem too bad, compared with some places.
Cons
My internship didn't teach me anything. People don't talk to you, only to give you work. But the main problem was that I didn't learn anything. I didn't do any useful work, and I volunteered to do more but it didn't help. There was no variety of tasks, always the same one or two things. And people didn't talk to you, so you couldn't really learn anything. Given that they won't even pay travel, I think an internship at Candlewick Press is kind of a bad deal. The only thing you get out of it is to put Candlewick Press on your resume. Also I would learn that some author was coming in, an award had been won, or there was a party going on in the office, but I hadn't been told about it. No one tells you anything or talks to you, never invites you to lunch and you certainly feel like a spare part. Which you are, as an intern, but given the lack of any money at all even travel, and the total lack of exposure to any publishing knowledge, they could at least have included interns in events that were going on in the office. I don't think interns are ever hired, at least I never heard of that with Candlewick Press. They also seem to have a lot of interns. I think Candlewick Press takes advantage: they have a whole bunch of interns which together must be doing a lot of work for them, and they give nothing back in return. Other publishing houses pay travel and/or lunch, take interns to see printing presses, assign them mentors, sometimes hire former interns, and more. This offsets the whole working for no pay thing, but there's nothing to offset it here.