New Golden Baby Board Book Series
March 16, 2011
Books: Golden Baby series, including Baby's First Book, Baby Farm Animals, Home for a Bunny, and The Poky Little Puppy
Author: Various, including Margaret Wise Brown, Garth Williams and Janette Sebring Lowrey
Pages: 24
Age Range: 0-3
The Little Golden books were originally published back in the 40's, inexpensive books designed to make picture books available to a broad range of families. They were small and thin, but written by well-known authors and illustrators, like Garth Williams. Many of the stories, like The Poky Little Puppy and Scuffy the Tugboat, have become enduring classics.
I have a beautiful anthology containing a dozen Little Golden books (a baby gift from Terry Doherty). I've enjoyed reading those, and will enjoy them even more when Baby Bookworm is older. But anthologies aren't very good for sitting on the sofa, reading aloud to a one-year-old.
So I was quite pleased the other day when a box arrived from Random House that contained several new "Golden Baby" books. These are board book editions of old Golden Book titles, with the original art and fonts, bound into sturdy little board books with lightly padded covers, all shiny and new. The books currently available in the series are: Baby's First Book, Baby Farm Animals, Home for a Bunny, and The Poky Little Puppy. I suspect that other books will follow.
The Poky Little Puppy is pretty text-dense for a board book - quite a bit different from most board books written and published today. Even Baby Farm Animals is more detailed than we might expect from a board book about farm animals today. For example:
Baby Donkey loves to eat juicy carrots.
He is sitting down because he is tired.
Somebody is trying to make him stand up and
follow those carrots tied on the end of a stick.
"I know that trick," he says.
But Baby Donkey, lovingly painted by Garth Williams, is adorably fuzzy, as are the other baby animals. And these books in general are a lovely update on these nostalgic classics. The Golden Baby books are books that grandparents can read to today's grandchildren, and talk about how their own grandparents read the same books to them. All without worrying about babies tearing or eating the pages. I'm delighted to see these baby-friendly editions published, and hope that you will be, too.
[Note: I found them a bit difficult to search for, since there are so many versions of these books. Here are direct links to these editions on Amazon: Baby's First Book, Baby Farm Animals, Home for a Bunny, and The Poky Little Puppy.]
Publisher: Golden Books
Publication Date: January 2011
Source of Book: Review copies from Random House
© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission on purchases (with no additional cost to you).