I was wandering the aisles of my favorite big box store this week when I saw a display of Little Golden Books. I haven’t had young readers in my house for some time, so I wasn’t up to date on offerings from the imprint.
Little Golden Books have been around since 1942 and has produced some of the best-selling children’s books of all time. Remember The Pokey Little Puppy? Scuffy the Tug Boat? The Little Red Hen? All were best sellers. By the imprint’s 50th anniversary in 1992, they claimed to have sold more than a billion books! Today, the books cost $3.99-$4.99, up slightly from the original 25 cents.
While you can still find some of the classic Little Golden Book titles, such as The Fuzzy Duckling and The Monster at the End of This Book (one of the favorites at our house), you’ll find several new offerings. There are Little Golden Books on Star Wars, Jurassic Park (Scary bedtime reading!), and Marvel characters. There’s even a series of LEGO Golden Books. What really caught my eye are the Little Golden Book Biographies. Lucile Ball, Dr. Fauci, Queen Elizabeth, Dolly Parton, and Betty White are just some of the ‘pop people’ who have their own Little Golden Books.
My mom used to let us pick out one new Little Golden Book at the grocery store. They were and still are some of my favorite stories. I like knowing that young readers today still enjoy the little books with the distinctive gold binding.