I attended a conference this weekend where editors spoke about their publishing houses.  In particular, Diane Muldrow of Golden Books really impressed when spoke about the history of Golden Books and art she discovered in the archives of Golden Books (former Golden Publishing, now Random House).

Golden Books dates back to 1942 when their books were 25 cents.  The original books were hardbacks with dust covers and 42 pages, but that quickly went away due to cost.  The dust jacket even contained specialized promotions for War Bonds!  Can you imagine the Pokey Little Puppy hocking war bonds?  Today Little Golden Books are commonly found in Wal-Mart 2 for $5, but that doesn’t mean their quality is any less.

One of my first books was the Pokey Little Puppy and The Saggy Baggy Elephant. The text was easy to roll around my tongue and I found the art comforting.  I loved the gold foil on the side of the book (which I pretended was real gold).

Pat the Bunny is one of my favorite baby shower books, and Richard Scary is also another author/illustrator of Little Golden (my favorite is Worst Helper Ever).

Diane Muldrow dug through her extensive art galleries at Little Golden to show us how art has changed over the past half century.  From all-white families having mom cooking dinner and dad smoking a pipe on the couch (50′s) to multi-cultural families emergence in the 70′s to single parent families 80′s.  As times change, so do our books.

I had to crack up over the pictures of the licensed titled she showed featuring Donny and Marie, Mister Rogers or Scooby-Doo.  I had many of the titles because we were a lower-middle income family.  But, my mother never denied me a book from Kmart or the Post-Exchange.  My little golden books traveled the world.  When languages and cultures changed around me, I still my 24 pages of sameness I could count on to make the world sane again.

Golden Books now has a wonderful book written by Leonard S. Marcus, Golden Legacy, full of their history, the people who shaped picture books today and classic art pieces from their archive.  It’s a must have for your personal library.

“Golden Legacy is a lively history of a company, a line of books, the groundbreaking writers and artists who created them, the clever mavericks who marketed and sold them, and the cultural landscape that surrounded them.” – The flap copy says it all.  The New York Times and SLJ agree.

http://www.randomhouse.com/golden/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375829963

Bettina Restrepo’s first picture book, Moose and Magpie, (Sylvan-Dell) will be out Summer 2009.  She loves reading to her young son who is her Worst Helper Ever.

Learn more about her books and school visit programs at www.bettinarestrepo.com

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