Little Golden Books is a series of small-sized (hence the "little" in the name) children's picture books first published by Simon & Schuster, then by Western Publishing, but now by Random House. They have been published every year since 1942.
A full list of Little Golden Books is nearly impossible to accumulate, due to the sheer number of books released under the imprint over the years. Therefore, this page will only list books in the series that are standalone (i.e., not connected to a preexisting show/movie/etc.)
- Three Little Kittens (the first LGB) (1942)
- Mother Goose (1942)
- The Animals Of Farmer Jones (1942)
- Bedtime Stories (1942)
- The Little Red Hen (1942)
- The Poky Little Puppy (1942)
- Tootle (1945)
- The New House In The Forest (1946)
- The Taxi That Hurried (1946)
- Scuffy The Tugboat (1946)
- The Shy Little Kitten (1946)
- Fix It, Please! (1947)
- Noises And Mr. Flibberty-jib (1947)
- The Saggy Baggy Elephant (1947)
- The Color Kittens (1949)
- The Happy Man And His Dump Truck (1949)
- Doctor Dan the Bandage Man (1950)
- Pets For Peter (1950)
- Nurse Nancy (1952)
- Seven Little Postmen (1952)
- Tawny Scrawny Lion (1952)
- The Kitten Who Thought He Was A Mouse (1954)
- Four Little Kittens (1957)
- The Wonderful School (1969)
- The Poky Little Puppy's First Christmas (1993)
- The New Baby
- Little Peewee
- Busy Timmy
- A Year In The City
- The Golden Sleepy Book
- Five Little Firemen
- A Name For Kitty
- The Marvelous Merry-Go-Round
- Gaston And Josephine
- Good Morning And Good Night
- Guess Who Lives Here
- The Seven Sneezes
- Johnny's Machines
- Little Yip-Yip And His Bark
- I Can Fly
- The Little Fat Policeman
- Brave Cowboy Bill
- Wheels
- Little Boy With A Big Horn
- Mister Dog
- Wiggles
- Daddies
- The Sailor Dog
- The Train To Timbuctoo
- The Fuzzy Duckling
- The Merry Shipwreck
- The Friendly Book
- Houses
- The Twins
- My Little Golden Book About God
...and a lot, lot more. Archive Panic, indeed.
These books contain examples of:
- Always Late: In How to Tell Time, Tommy O'Toole is called "Tommy Too-Late" by his family because he's always late getting up, always late for breakfast, and almost always late for school. They set up a sundial so the sun can cast a shadow at a certain spot when it's time for him to come in, and then they try lighting a candle with marks on the sides to show him when it's bedtime. When Tommy is still late for everything, his father gives him a watch and teaches him how to tell time. This works, and at the end of the story, his family is calling him "Tommy On-Time". The book's front cover had a picture of a watch with movable hands.
- Animated Adaptation:
- Some of the books, both original and licensed properties, were animated as the Golden Book Video series for the home video market.
- DiC Entertainment released a syndicated TV special in 1989 called Little Golden Book Land, which featured a number of the LGB characters in an original adventure. It would get a VHS home video release in the 1990s.
- Artistic License – Animal Care: The Poky Little Puppy and his siblings are shown eating sweets in various of their books like cake. Sweets (especially chocolate) are a big no-no for dogs to eat.
- Long-Running Book Series: Well over a hundred books, published regularly since 1942.
- Novelization: A variation on this trope; many existing properties from television, film, cartoons, comic strips, and so on have been adapted into Little Golden Books. There are way too many to list here.
- May It Never Happen Again: In The Big Brown Bear, the titular bear sneaks to an old tree for some honey, despite his wife's warnings. He ends up being stung on the nose by a swarm of bees, and he decides to never get too close to that specific tree again.
- The Moral Substitute: My Little Golden Book About God, obviously.
- Picture Books: Every single series entry contains full-sized illustrations to go with the narration.
- Trope Codifier: The first children's books to not only be entertaining but to be mass-produced, mass-marketed and affordable. Prior to their release, children's books were expensive and limited only to bookstores. Little Golden Books were priced reasonably, sold in many places besides traditional bookstores and good enough to remain popular even to this day.
