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)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)