Monday, November 10, 2008
Long Live Little Golden Books!
Sitting in the waiting room of my daughter’s pediatrician, I noticed a Little Golden Book on the table. Flipping through the pages of We Help Mommy, I felt transported back to the waiting room of my own pediatrician decades earlier, when I sat next to my mother, listening intently as she quietly read this book to me. If this story is still around after all these years, I mused, how many other Little Golden Books have stood the test of time?
The little books with the gold-patterned spine first appeared in 1942, selling for only 25 cents. The Poky Little Puppy and the other 11 titles became hugely popular, in part because they were much less expensive than most children’s books at the time. In just 5 months, sales reached 1.5 million!
In the 1950s, Little Golden Books was at the forefront of commercial cross-marketing. Dr. Dan the Bandage Man was published in cooperation with Johnson & Johnson®, and came with a packet of six Band-Aids®. I remember my copy of Little Lulu and Her Magic Tricks, which had a small package of Kleenex® attached to its cover, and directions for making toys from the tissues.
By the 60th anniversary, over 2 billion Little Golden Books had been printed--enough to reach the moon! A permanent Little Golden Books exhibit is on view at the Smithsonian Institution. If you don’t get a chance to see it, watch for the traveling exhibit through the end of this year, organized by the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature.
Seriously, who didn’t love The Saggy Baggy Elephant, The Tawny Scrawny Lion, and my favorite, The Shy Little Kitten? These and hundreds more titles are still in print, with topics and characters ranging from cartoons, nursery rhymes and fairy tales, Disney®, Sesame Street®, Barbie®, Bozo®, Captain Kangaroo®, poetry, ABCs and counting—the list is practically endless! Four of the original 12 titles top the list of the 10 all-time best-selling kids’ books. There’s really no secret to their staying power—their simple heart-warming appeal transcends generations.
Here’s your “golden” opportunity to pass along these enduring stories to yet another generation. Start your collection or add to an existing one with our set of 8 much-loved titles.
posted by Betty at
8:54 AM
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