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<<< Continued from previous page Beginner Books' Beginnings Up until the mid-1950s, there was a degree of separation between illustrated educational books and illustrated picturebooks. This all changed, dramatically and with much national fanfare, with the 1957 publication of Dr. Seuss's The Cat In The Hat. Here was an early reader, full of 220 madly rhyming words, which made its way into our elementary school classrooms. The publication of the book in 1957 forever changed the way in which children would learn to read and be educated. Reading could be fun! Though Random House initially published The Cat In The Hat, because of its success Beginner Books was formed as an independent publishing company, with Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, as president and editor. Beginner Books was chartered as a series of books oriented toward various stages of early reading development. The second book in the series, The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, published in 1958, was nearly as popular. Springing from this series of beginning readers were such standards as A Fly Went By (1958), Put Me In The Zoo (1958), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), Go, Dog. Go! (1961), Hop On Pop (1963), and Fox in Socks (1965), each monumental in the picturebook industry and also significant in the historical development of early readers. All are still in print and remain very popular nearly fifty years after their initial publication. The Beginner Books dominated the children's picturebook market of the 1960's, and still play a significant role today within the phases of students' reading development. Should Beginner Books Be In The Top 100 Picturebooks? With respect to student reading development, experienced booksellers might ask, "So What?" Is this sufficient to qualify them to land into the Top 100 Collectible American Picturebooks? Certainly a justifiable question. One key factor contributing to the collectibility of a book is the total number of copies sold in the primary market (i.e. new books) relative to the number of first editions originally printed. Children's picturebooks are no different. In 2001 Publisher's Weekly (PW) created their list of the All-Time Bestselling Children's Books, comprised of 189 hardcover children's books with over 750,000 copies sold. Twenty Beginner Books made the list, and eleven were in the top 50 All-Time Bestselling Children's hardcover books: Click here to see the chart.
The public's embrace for Beginner Books over the course of fifty years lends high credibility to their consideration in the Top 100 Collectible Picturebooks. The Key Beginner Books Two of the Beginner Books, Green Eggs and Ham and Cat In The Hat, have previously been selected as part of the Marquis 25. Nine additional Beginner Books have been selected for the Top 100 Collectible Picturebooks. The following chronological chart provides a brief summary of the selection rationale and the estimated market price for the first edition book with the corresponding first edition dust jacket, both in VG (Very Good) or better condition. Click here to see the chart. The first edition books are relatively affordable, but many are difficult to find. Ironically, Dr. Seuss first editions are comparably easier to find in the secondary market since they are known collectibles by both children's book specialists and generalist booksellers. The five non-Seuss books are more difficult to acquire. Some comments on specific books:
[Seuss] gave Helen formal permission to write a Beginner Book from "Gustav the Goldfish," which he had written in 1950 in his long-running series of children's stories for Redbook. "You have the right to use any of the situations of any of the words from the original story that your little heart desires. You must, however, comply with all the necessary steps in protecting my original copyright." Rating The 'Copies Sold' The number of copies sold is an important factor in determining the Top 100 Collectible American Picturebooks because it is a measure of the public's embrace of the book and an amalgamation of other factors affecting a book's collectibility: When the story is embraced by the public, the author or illustrator is favored by the public, the book wins an award, is adapted into a feature film or is part of a franchise, more copies of the book will be sold As a result, I weight the 'Copies Sold' factor highly. A book's collectibility is enhanced when the first printing of the book is small relative to the number of copies sold over time. In most instances, a book's popularity was not originally anticipated by the publisher, and thus the book goes through many printings to meet demand, often in the early years of its publication history. All of the books in the Top 100 have had multiple print runs to meet a demand which often spans decades. In all cases the original first print run was small relative to the total number of copies sold to date. Almost Nearly No Brainers Previously, I selected nearly seventy of the Top 100 Collectible American Picturebooks - the Marquis 25, landmarks within the genre, so called No Brainers, since they would be on nearly everyone's list of classic American picturebooks, and subsequently, the Nearly No Brainers. Though the Almost Nearly No Brainers have many of the qualities of Marquis 25 No Brainers and the Nearly No Brainers, they do not possess all of their brethren's credentials. The following chronological chart provides a brief summary of the selection rationale and the estimated market price for the first edition book with the corresponding first edition dust jacket, both in VG (Very Good) or better condition. Click here to see the chart.
Note again that the values of several of the Almost Nearly No Brainers are higher than many of the books previously selected. Some comments on specific books:
The First Twelve Little Golden Books Next in the list of Top 100 Collectible American Picturebooks are the first twelve Little Golden Books, all simultaneously published in 1942. The following chronological chart provides a brief summary of the selection rationale and the estimated market price for the first edition book with the corresponding first edition dust jacket, both in VG (Very Good) or better condition. Click here to see the chart. Surprisingly, these Little Golden Books were initially published with dust jackets (1942-1947) - one of the pre-requisites for the list - then transitioned to the now familiar gold foil spine. LGB's with dust jackets have blue cloth spines and thus are easily differentiated from the those published after 1947. Why Twelve Little Golden Books? While Little Golden Books have an avid and passionate collector base, they have been relatively overlooked by generalist booksellers and book collectors. Many wonder if they are sufficiently credentialed. Here is a perspective from the Random House Little Golden Books website: The Story of Little Golden Books When Little Golden Books launched in 1942 at 25 cents each, they changed publishing history. For the first time, children's books were high quality and low-priced. They were available to almost all children, not just a privileged few. Little Golden Books were designed to be sturdy (a new concept), delightfully illustrated, and to be sold not only in bookstores, but department stores and other chains (another new concept). Little Golden Books were an instant success story, even though WWII was on and paper shortages loomed. Five months after the launch, 1.5 million copies had been printed, and LGBs were in their third printing. Since then, over two billion Little Golden Books have reached the hands of children all over the world. Who hasn't heard of The Poky Little Puppy, star of the best-selling Little Golden Book of all? It has sold well over 15 million copies worldwide, in many different languages. Tootle the Train, The Saggy Baggy Elephant, The Shy Little Kitten, The Little Red Caboose, The Tawny Scrawny Lion, and Scuffy the Tugboat soon followed, to become household names. Little Golden Books have mirrored children's popular culture over the years, having featured Lassie, Raggedy Ann, Uncle Wiggley, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Howdy Doody, Annie Oakley, Captain Kangaroo, Bozo the Clown, Gene Autrey, The Lone Ranger, Smokey Bear, Disney, Warner Brothers, Hanna Barbera, Sesame Street, Pokemon, and Between the Lions characters, Mister Rogers, Barney, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Underdog, Peter Cottontail, Barbie, and others. Dr. Ruth Westheimer has just penned a story about grandparents starring herself. Many famous writers and illustrators created Little Golden Books, notably Margaret Wise Brown, author of GOODNIGHT MOON (Harper). Her LGBs were often illustrated by Garth Williams, most famous for his illustrations for CHARLOTTE'S WEB, STUART LITTLE, and the "Little House" series. Richard Scarry began his career at Golden Books and did most of his most famous books here, from Little Golden Books to his beloved oversized books CARS AND TRUCKS AND THINGS THAT GO, and RICHARD SCARRY'S BEST WORD BOOK EVER! Eloise Wilkin, famous for her stunning paintings of cherubic children, illustrated dozens of LGBs. Caldecott medalists James Marshall, Tibor Gergely, Leonard Weisgard, Alice and Martin Provensen, and Trina Schart Hyman have illustrated Little Golden Books. Today, Little Golden Books are an icon. The Smithsonian Institution includes Little Golden Books and artwork in its Division of Cultural History. Note the many collectibility factors:
The question isn't whether or not to include Little Golden Books in the Top 100 list but instead which books to include. Five LGB's made the Publisher's Weekly Bestselling Children's Books, four of them in the top ten - The Poky Little Puppy, Tootle, Saggy Baggy Elephant, and Scuffy The Tugboat. I debated whether to include only these five LGB's or the entire first twelve. Given that the success of the first twelve laid the foundation for the subsequent success of the following books in the franchise, I decided to include all twelve in the list of Top 100. This was a key decision in the strategic formation of the list. The Late Great Debatable Eight Ninety-two of the Top 100 Collectible American Picturebooks have been selected. The remaining books, the Late Great Debatable Eight, are difficult to select. The following chronological chart provides a brief summary of the selection rationale and the estimated market price for the first edition book with the corresponding first edition dust jacket, both in VG (Very Good) or better condition. Click here to see the chart.
Since the selection of each of these is likely to be contentious, I'll provide commentary on each book:
The Top 100 Collectible American Picturebooks In the last article the list will be dissected so the reader can view the Top 100 Collectible American Picturebooks from a number of perspectives. The Top 100 will be sorted chronologically, by scarcity, grouped by illustrator, grouped by author, and sorted by overall collectibility. Before presenting these perspectives, the following shows the entire Top 100 grouped according to the selection process. To recap, the Top 100 Collectible American Picturebooks has been built using a sequence of partially logical steps. The sequence of steps segmented the Top 100 into smaller digestible bites, since selecting them as one large undertaking would have been overwhelming, both for myself and for the reader. The partially logical steps:
The following chronological chart provides a brief summary of the selection rationale and the estimated market price for the first edition book with the corresponding first edition dust jacket, both in VG (Very Good) or better condition. Click here to see the chart.
As mentioned above, I used eight different but related factors to rate each book. The above chart provides a single line summary rationale that synthesizes these ratings. The chart following provides the specific ratings for each factor - a '10' indicating strong collectibility. Click here to see the chart. In the last article the list will be dissected from a number of perspectives.
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