Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the July 2, 2015 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.
As a former children’s librarian, a mother to three daughters, and a grandmother to a brood of grandchildren, I can’t imagine life without shelves of books for children. Hundreds of picture books are published every year, and libraries have the challenge of fitting them on the shelves of their children’s rooms. In libraries like ours in Norwood, we often have to defer to a one-in, one-out policy which means “weeding out” the worn and unread books to fit the new. It sometimes breaks our hearts to withdraw a lovely book that hasn’t acquired the following that some of the newest books have.
As a very young child, my family treasured reading and books. I don’t remember my own experiences reading many picture books, though. Besides our well-worn copy of Make Way for Ducklings (published in 1941), and my mother’s own copies of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy, not many children’s books made our family’s cross-country move with in the late 1950s.
When my younger brothers were born in the 1960s, however, our bookshelves filled with classic hardcovers like Goodnight Moon (1947) and the Dr. Seuss early readers that all children love: The Cat in the Hat (1957) and Hop on Pop (1963). Also crowding the shelves were the inexpensive Little Golden Books – those with gold spines and a special bookplate printed inside the front cover. The Poky Little Puppy, The Three Little Kittens, and The Little Red Hen, many that were first published in 1942 and were reprinted time and time again after that.
Little Golden Books were the brainchild of Simon and Schuster and a few others who lent their marketing know-how to the project, including educators. The initial set was a series of 12 titles, most which were based on nursery rhymes or folktales. The exception was The Poky Little Puppy. All the Little Gold Books cost 25 cents and were designed to be affordable and irresistible to families where they were first sold in grocery stores. Some families collected them over a few weeks or months; other wealthier families bought them all at once.
Besides being affordable, the illustrations were colorful. Some were comical and bright; others lovely in pastel. Little-known writers (Cathleen Schurr) and illustrators (Richard Scarry) got their start with the Little Golden Books imprint. Janette Lowrey, the author of The Poky Little Puppy, received a one-time, flat-fee payment of $75 for the title. That book has sold over 15 million copies in various languages over the past 75 plus years.
The Little Golden Books were loved by families and booksellers across the country and they made quite a profit for Simon and Schuster by a growing generation of Baby Boomer families. Interestingly (but not surprising to me), they were not embraced by librarians across the country, but rather they were pooh-poohed them right from the start by that profession. They considered them somewhat like pulp romance or mystery – but for children, simple a disgrace to children’s literature!
However, educators continued to praise the Golden Books because children loved them. Adults were reading them to children and children were reading the books themselves and that was certainly something that teachers got behind. Simon and Schuster were hopeful that one of the books would be awarded the coveted Caldecott Award for illustration of a children’s book. They asked Elizabeth Orton Jones, a Caldecott Award recipient, to illustrate one of their books, which she did. That was one of the most beautiful and most-famous renditions of Little Red Riding Hood, published in 1948.
After two decades, in 1962, Simon and Schuster raised the price of the Little Golden Books to 29 cents. They also designed the Giant Golden Books (The Golden Encyclopedia and the Golden Dictionary), and Golden Sturdy Books (I Am a Bunny), and those began filling up the bookshelves in the homes of a new generation. Authors and illustrators (Margaret Wise Brown, Richard Scarry, and Eloise Wilkin) worked with Simon and Schuster and the ever-growing series earned its reputation. A treasury of the first 12 Little Golden Books was published in 1992 and most libraries shelve copies of many of the titles, particularly the newly-published board books of the original Little Golden Book titles.
If you want to walk down the nostalgic lane with Little Golden Books, there are two terrific books you will find in many Minuteman libraries, including our library in Norwood. The first is a terrific read that can carry you back to the first Little Golden Books. Leonard S. Marcus’ Golden Legacy (2009) is subtitled with a simple explanation: “How Golden Books Won Children’s Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became an American Icon Along the Way.”
The second is a very slim New York Times Bestseller usually shelved in children’s fiction. Young children are sure to enjoy it but adults will appreciate it even more. Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Little Golden Book (Diane Muldrow, 2013) looks just like one of the Golden Books you’ll remember. Its 75 pages are filled with illustrations that accompany advice and annotation about the stories you loved best. “Get some exercise everyday” is illustrated by Tibor Gergely’s 1956 Animal Gym. “Be open to making new friends … even if you’re very, very shy” (Gustaf Tenggren’s 1946 illustration from The Shy Little Kitten) and “Do no harm” (Eloise Wilkin’s 1956 illustration from My Little Golden Book About God).
In the 1940s, when Little Golden Books were first published, their inside covers helped to sell bonds to support the World War II war effort. In the 1950s, Little Golden Books published stories about Doctor Dan and Nurse Nancy. In the 1960s, the Golden Books partnered with Walt Disney with favorites like Davy Crockett. Later on, Golden Books grew and partnered through the Cold War and into the next millennium.
The rest, of course, is history. Little Golden Books made their mark in American culture and literature, librarians-be-damned.
