Beginner Books is the Random House imprint for young children ages 4-8, co-founded by Phyllis Cerf with Ted Geisel, more often known as Dr. Seuss, and his wife Helen Palmer Geisel.
Their first book was Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (1957). The rest of the series was modeled on the requirement Seuss set himself in writing that book: for each book, the author was to use no more than 200 words taken from a list of 379 words compiled by Cerf as the basic vocabulary for young readers, along with twenty more slightly harder "emergency" words.
With only four titles in their catalog in 1958, they were earning a million dollars a year two years later, making Random House the largest publisher of children's books in America.
Read more about Beginner Books: Early Contributors, List of Beginner Books, Bright and Early Books
Famous quotes containing the words beginner and/or books:
“A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in that science when he has learned that ... he is going to be a beginner all his life.”
—R.G. (Robin George)
“The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one’s mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can survive a visit to the real countries which they are supposed to represent.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)