One
of the earliest memories I have of reading books and of having books read to me
is attached to Little Golden Books. I loved Dr.
Seuss and Curious George books
the most, but I fondly recall reading those colorful little books that were so
neatly packaged. The illustrations
looked like water color and the text was in bold black lettering. Do you
remember these books?
There
were titles like The Party Pig, Roy Rogers and Cowboy Today, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Baby’s Mother Goose, Lassie and Her Day in the Sun, Pussy Willow, and so many other cute
ones that appealed to the imagination and curiosity of children all over the
world. I fell back in love with those
almost square-sized books when I read Collecting
Little Golden Books: A Collector’s
Identification & Value Guide 2nd
Edition (1994) by Steve Santi.
Most
books for children sold for $2 to $3 in 1942.
Some cost-conscious competitors dipped as low as a 50-cent cover
price. Little Golden Books launched for
just a quarter a piece -- a great bargain for a 44-page book filled with 14
full-color pages and 30 black and white ones.
Though
the books sold out upon their release, not all were satisfied. Santi wrote:
“Little
Golden Books, with their colorful bright pages, were designed to be handled by
a child, inexpensive enough that a child could now read or handle their book
whenever they wanted to. Wish these
qualities and many more, the books became very popular with parents, but not
with librarians in those early years. Librarians felt that these books did not
contain the quality of literature that a child should be reading. They did not consider that a book a child could
handle was better than a book on a six-foot shelf or that an affordable book
was better than not owning one.”
The first dozen books, released nearly 75
years ago, consisted of the following:
Three Little Kittens
Bedtime Stories
The Alphabet A-Z
Mother Goose
Prayers for Children
The Little Red Hen
Nursery Songs
The Poky Little Puppy
The Golden Book of Fairy Tales
Baby’s Book
The Animals of Farmer Jones
This Little Piggy
Within
five months of the line’s release, 1.5 million copies had been printed. According to the author, “They became so popular with children that by the end of 1945
most of the first twelve books had been printed seven times. Simon and
Schuster, Inc. published Little Golden Books while the Artists and Writers
Guild produced them and Western Printing and Lithographing did the printing. In
1958, Western Publishing and Lithographing Co., Inc. and Pocket Books Inc.
became joint publishers. The company name was then changed to Golden Press,
Inc.”
The
books were priced so low and they were getting great distribution. “When the
books were first released they were sold mainly in book and department stores,”
says the author. “From there they moved into variety stores, toy stores, drug
stores and finally, in the late ‘40s, something new called the supermarket.”
These
books launched during World War II and a paper shortage had developed.
“To help ease this shortage the War Production Board put restrictions on paper use in 1943,” wrote Santi. “To do their part for the war effort, retailers were receiving only one of every ten books they ordered. Some Little Golden Book titles were being printed with less than the original forty-two pages. In some cases the size of the book was also reduced slightly.”
“To help ease this shortage the War Production Board put restrictions on paper use in 1943,” wrote Santi. “To do their part for the war effort, retailers were receiving only one of every ten books they ordered. Some Little Golden Book titles were being printed with less than the original forty-two pages. In some cases the size of the book was also reduced slightly.”
A
decade after their release, in 1952, approximately 182,615,000 Little Golden
Books had been sold. The Night Before Christmas had sold over
4 million copies. Sales were booming.
“Over half of the titles printed by 1954 had sold over 1,000,000 copies each,” said Santi. “Little Golden Books were now available almost everywhere in the world except the Soviet Union. With the distinction of being labeled a capitalistic story The Poky Little Puppy was not allowed to be sold along with any Little Golden Books in the Soviet Union.”
“Over half of the titles printed by 1954 had sold over 1,000,000 copies each,” said Santi. “Little Golden Books were now available almost everywhere in the world except the Soviet Union. With the distinction of being labeled a capitalistic story The Poky Little Puppy was not allowed to be sold along with any Little Golden Books in the Soviet Union.”
Though
price gradually rose, these books remained under the going market price. Twenty
years after coming out, these books sold for just 29 cents apiece. This was
followed by a raise to 39 cents in 1968, 40 cents in 1974, 59 cents in 1977, 69
cents in 1979, 89 cents in 1982, and 99 cents in 1986.
Little
Golden Books have been printed in over dozens of countries. In 1982, when Little
Golden Books turned 40, over 800,000,000 books had been sold. On November 20,
1986, the one billionth Little Golden Book was printed – it was a copy of The Poky Little Puppy.
Won’t
you read one tonight before bed?
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