History of Little Golden Books

Toward the end of the Depression in the 1930's Western Publishing Co. formed the Artistas and Writers Guild to develope new children's books.
In 1940 George Duplaix became the head of the Guild and began working on a colorful children's book that would be durable and affordable to American families.  At the time, most children's books cost between $2.00 and $3.00.



The first ad announce the new books was on September 19,1942 in the Publisher's Weekly.  The first 12 Little Golden Books were:

1. Three Little Kittens
2. Bedtime Stories
3. The Alphabet A-Z
4. Mother Goose
5. Prayers for Children
6. The Little Red Hen
7. Nursery Songs
8. The Poky Little Puppy
9. The Golden Book of Fairy Tales
10. Baby's Book
11. The Animals of Famer Jones
12. This Litte Piggy

More than 1.5 million copies were printed and books were in their 3rd printing within 5 months. Simon and Schuster published the books withle the Artists and Writers Guild produced them and Western Printing and Lithographing did the printing.  Books were originally sold in book and department stores. In the late 1940's the supermarket came into being and they began selling these books.  What better way to sell books that were affordable and easy for children to hold than while their parents were shopping. In 1943, with WWII, a paper use restriction was imposed and retailers were only getting 1 out of every 10 books requested. Book titles were being printed with less than the original 42, and in some cases the size of the book was decreased from the original 8 1/4 by 6 1/4 size.  The books that were decreased in size stated First Printing of this Edition on the Copyright page. Once the paper shortage was over the books were again printed with their original 42 pages.

Most of the original 35 titles were released with blue binding and had a dust jacket.  Book number 35 The Happy Family was the last to have the blue binding.  On the back flap of the dust jacket it talked about purchasing U.S. Savings Stamps. By 1944, with the war over Little Golden Books were selling so well that Simon and Schuster created new division called Sandpiper press.  In the 1940's Little Golden books were approved by Mary Reed Ph.D and shee supervised the subject matter of the books until 1961. In 1947 Disney Little Golden Books were more regularly being published.    Doctor Dan the Bandage Man was released in 1951 and contained bandAids glued to the right side of the pages.  In May of 1954 Little Lulu and her Magic Tricks was printed and came with a small package of Kleenex in its front cover along with directions for making tissue toys..  By the mid 1950's many of the most popular Golden Books featured TV show characters along with Westerns.  In the 1960's the books featured Saturday Cartoon characters.  From 1965 - 1970 dropped the TV themes and went back to stories about growing up.  In 1955 Golden Books began a series of activity themed books that ran until 1961.  In 1958, Giant Little Golden Books were produced and feature usually three Little Golden book stories.   In 1974, Little Golden Books were published in the Eagar Reader Series.  Little Golden Books have been printed in more than 42 countries.  In  1982 Little Golden Books was 40 years old  na d had sold more than 800,000,000 books