Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Everything I Need to Know I Learned From a Little Golden Book

What a fun book this proves to be. I reviewed it with Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon on Radio NZ National this morning. Something quite different to the usual type of book being reviewed !

It is in the style, shape and format of the traditional Little Golden Book but runs to 80 pages compared to 24 pages in the trad edition.
I guess you could call it a fun guide to life for adult fans of the classic, iconic and ubiquitous Little Golden Books.
This series was established on 1 October 1942 and the first 12 titles were:
  1. Three Little Kittens
  2. Bedtime Stories
  3. Mother Goose
  4. Prayers for Children
  5. The Little Red Hen
  6. Nursery Songs
  7. The Alphabet from A to Z
  8. The Poky Little Puppy
  9. The Golden Book of Fairy Tales
  10. Baby's Book of Objects
  11. The Animals of Farmer Jones
  12. This Little Piggy and Other Counting Rhymes
There have been over 1000 titles published and since 2001 the imprint has been owned by Random House. And back on the 50th anniversary in 1992 the publishers said over 1.5 billion copies had been sold.
Today they are as popular as ever and still sell "by the truckload".

We are told that one day Diane Muldrow, a longtime editor of Little Golden Books, realised that there is hardly a real-life situation these whimsical books don't address and so she paired delightful images from many of the most popular Little Golden Books with practical one word or one line tips for getting the most out of life to create this new title. Great stuff. And she has carefully credited the title, author, illustrator and pub date for each illustration used.
I love it and reckon it is a fun Christmas stocking idea.

Random House - Hardback -Full colour - 80 pages - NZ$19.99

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