Big Little Book series
The Big Little Books, first published during 1932 by the
Format
A Big Little Book was typically 3+5⁄8 in (92 mm) wide and 4+1⁄2 in (110 mm) high, with 212 to 432 pages making an approximate thickness of 1+1⁄2 in (38 mm). The interior book design usually displayed full-page black-and-white illustrations on the right side, facing the pages of text on the left. Stories were often related to radio programs (
History
After the first Big Little Book, The Adventures of Dick Tracy, was published (December 1932), numerous titles were sold through Woolworth's and other retail store systems during the 1930s. With a name change to Better Little Books during 1938, the series continued into the 1960s. Variations such as Dime Action Books were produced by other publishers, as noted by the Collecting Channel's Andy Hooper:
While the format was pioneered by
comic and radio character of the 1930s, including Alley Oop, Buck Rogers, Blondie and Dagwood, Li'l Abner, Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Captain Midnight, Tarzan and dozens more. There were also numerous books published that featured original characters created particularly for the Big Little series, and those are now little remembered, usually selling for $10 or less each in any condition. A few titles were ostensibly non-fiction works about famous people, as with Whitman's Billy The Kid (1935) and The Story of Jackie Cooper (1933), which proves that biographies of child movie stars are no recent phenomenon.[2]
Recently, Robert Thibadeau's [3] project at Carnegie Mellon University has made at least two Big Little Books available online. Thibadeau attempts to "capture the entire production" of an old book with facsimile images showing pages with wear and tear. "We're basically trying to eternalize that book as it is," says Thibadeau. The Antique Books Digital Library offers two free Big Little Book titles, Tim McCoy on the Tomahawk Trail and Bronc Peeler The Lone Cowboy. Fred Harman's Bronc Peeler was a Western comic strip character who was a precursor to another comic strip drawn by Harman, the more successful Red Ryder.
Mighty Midgets
From 1939 the British
In popular culture
References
- ^ Big Little Book & Comics - ERBzine
- ^ Hooper, Andy. Collecting Channel, 2000.
- ^ Antique Books
- ^ "Mighty Midgets WWII booklet from Woolworth's".
Further reading
Online copy
- Gaylord Dubois, Tom McCoy on the Tomahawk Trail, Whitman Publishing, 1937 (Big Little Books)
Secondary literature
- Arnold T. Blumberg, Big Big Little Book Book : An Overstreet Photo-Journal Guide : also Includes Related Items and Pop-Up Books (Timonium, MD: Gemstone Publishing, 2004)
- Lawrence F. Lowery, Lowery's The Collector's Guide to Big Little Books and Similar Books (Danville, CA: Educational Research and Applications Corporation, 1981)
- James Stuart Thomas, The Big Little Book Price Guide (Des Moines, IA : Wallace-Homestead Book Co., c. 1983)