The price continued to rise over the years, but still stayed under a dollar for decades, finally threatening that threshold in 1986 when the price reached $0.99. The books, of course, couldn't stay $0.25 forever, although it did take 20 years before the price jumped to $0.29. Overall, well over two billion Little Golden Books have been sold since 1942 in nearly every country across the globe-though they were banned for many years in the Soviet Union for being “too capitalist.” Saggy Baggy Elephant (1947) was #7 with just under 7.5 million, and Scuffy the Tugboat (1955) came in at #8 with 7.3 million. Tootle (1945), about a locomotive-in-training, was third with over 8.5 million copies sold. Many of the original 12 rounded out the Top 10 of the century, too. But Poky isn’t the only Little Golden Book with impressive numbers. The Poky Little Puppy was and still is the most popular of these original titles, helping it become the best-selling children's book of the 20th century (a total of 14,898,341 copies were sold).

The Little Golden Books' original 12 titles were: Busy parents could keep rambunctious children occupied while they ran errands, and not feel guilty about the additional 25 cents tacked onto their final bills. One of the keys to their sales success was the fact that they were available in unusual places, such as department stores, drug stores, and supermarkets.

After only five months on the market, 1.5 million copies had been sold and many titles were already in their third printing by 1945, most were in their seventh printing. The first 12 titles were released on October 1, 1942, at a price of only a quarter a piece. Western was already publishing a line for kids called Golden Books, so Duplaix and his team piggy-backed on those marketing efforts, calling the new line Little Golden Books. But George Duplaix of the Artist's and Writer's Guild, in partnership with Simon & Schuster Publications and Western Printing, wanted to change all that.ĭuplaix thought the solution was small, sturdy, inexpensive books with fewer pages, simpler stories, and more illustrations so little kids could actually enjoy them. They were usually large volumes that were too difficult for young readers to handle or comprehend, and were awfully expensive at $2 to $3 each (that's about $28 - $42 today). But how much do you know about the story behind these beloved tales?īefore the introduction of Little Golden Books in 1942, children's books weren't necessarily made with children's interests in mind. There's a good chance you grew up reading the adventures of The Poky Little Puppy, Tootle, or Scuffy the Tugboat in the pages of Little Golden Books.

Tootle little golden book 1945