[See below for the complete list of Pinkney illustrated books. The list is more comprehensive than any found on the web, and includes books not listed in the Library of Congress catalogs. The estimated market value is for first edition copies, in dust jacket, in near fine condition.]

For the newby to this site 'book collectors', in context here, collect first edition books. For inexplicable reasons, first edition books are sought after by people who don't have the ability to reason 'Why?'. We can only explain how we do, and what we do, and where we do, but not why we do. We just do. Because of what we do, first edition books rise in value in the book collector's market, which is oft referred to as the secondary market. Primary is the new book market, composed of Amazon along with ever decreasing numbers of brick & mortar stores. In comparision, the secondary market is full aft and fore of more savory characters than not, with venues ranging from physical locations to electronic ones, from eBay to thrift stores, and includes specialized pre-owned book sites such as Abebooks and Alibris. Book collectors constantly foray for first edition books ever pressing forward to quench the growing lust to own.

There is a small sub-class of book collectors who apply reason to their collecting "Why?", and collect books they think might appreciate in value over time. For them, I write this. Lustful types stay away.

The Beginning Illustrator's Evolution To Authorship

The progression of Pinkney's early illustration career is similar to others. At the start of his career he didn't have the notoriety or following to both author and illustrate a book - publishing companies don't usually embrace the risk/reward ratio to gamble on unproven talent. Because of this, early in their careers illustrators might do dust jackets or embellishments on chapter books, work which they usually get piece pay rather than royalties.

During the next phase of their career they usually illustrate stories written by others, getting a share of the creator royalties. Once established with some market success, a publishing company will feel warranted to risk both authorship & artwork, and young struggling illustrator earns 100% of the creator royalties. Often, the illustrator's intial foray into authorship is doing an ABC book, something which doesn't require a large quantity of creative writing, having a predictable beginning, middle, and end, or perhaps to illustrate a story in the public domain, such as a nursery rhyme, fairy tale, Aesop's tale or something of the sort. This is affectionately called 'adapted by' within the industry, and explains the abundance of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Jack & Jill, and Beauty and the Beast books on the market. Eventually the illustrator will write their own stories. Some illustrators never make the creative transition from illustrator to 'adapted by' to author/illustrator, and remain mired in the middle category. Michael Hague and Barry Moser come to mind, and to a certain extent, Jerry Pinkney.

Even today, over forty years into his highly succussful illustration career, Pinkney has only modestly delved into authorship, and most of these works have been published in the past ten years. Lion & the Mouse, Pinkney's Caldecott Medal book, is a wordless book based upon the classic Aesop's Fable, a story in the public domain.

A Calming Style

Jerry Pinkney's watercolors are highly detailed along a realistic style, unusual for a children's book illustrator. HIs animals, even in animorphic poses, have dimensions with realistically correct symmetries to the based-upon creature. Pinkney's illustrations have a calming almost sombre undertone, and appeal to adults nearly as much as they appeal to small children. Pinkney uses an earth-tone natural color palette, one not biased toward the simplistic bold four-colors one often finds in children's books.

This style has remained consistent over the course of his forty year career. When Eric Rohmann won the Caldecott Medal for My Friend Rabbit in 2003 using a drastically modified style, one with broad bold swooping outlines and cartoon-like simplicity, a number of established illustrators altered their style in response. Not Pinkney, who stayed true to the form met with so much success in the market.

Reading a Pinkney-illustrated picturebook to a young child is a calming experience. The pictures are often more important than the words, and while there is always a focal point to the illustration, it doesn't jump out at the child as is the norm. There is not one focal point, rather many things for the eye to focus upon. The child's eye and mind have to work a bit to gather in the entire scene.

Collectible First Editions, With Focus

• Pinkney's most valuable book is the 1977 Newbery Medal winner Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry, written by Mildred Taylor. First edition Newbery Medal books have a passionate collector following, especially among librarians and educators, so is the primary driver of the relatively high market price. There are very few Newbery Medal books with jacket illustrations and/or adornments by a Caldecott Medalist illustrator, so another big positive. Lastly, this book has a strong cross-current as an African-American collectible because of author, illustrator, and subject. I expect the market value of this book to increase considerably over the next decade.

• Mirandy And Brother Wind, written by Patricia McKissack, garnered Pinkney his first Caldecott Honor, and also earned him his second Coretta Scott King Medal. It's a beautifully illustrated book which made an impression when I first read it some 20 years ago, the illustrations much more so than the story. Like many of the Knopf picturebooks of this era, the dust jacket seems of slightly lighter stock so is prone to wear and tearing. Fine copies in fine DJ's are very desirable. First editions of Pinkney's books published before 1990 were printed in smaller numbers than those post-1990 due his growing marketability.

• Lion & The Mouse, the 2010 Caldecott Medal book, is also Pinkney's first attempt at a wordless book - let's hope it's not his last. Pinkney's visual story telling is remarkably evident and will capture the imagination of small children for years to come. I'm unsure of the size of the initial printing, so the coming months will tell more about the potential appreciation once the first editions are absorbed by the collecting hobby. Given the overall collectibility of Pinkney's body of work, I expect the demand for the first edition to outstrip the supply.

• Because of his 40-plus year continuum, productivity, and well-deserved noteriety, Pinkney's early books have become quite valuable. He has been an illustrator commercially since 1965, with nearly 100 books to his credit, and won over 10 major children's illustration awards. Pinkney's first book, The Adventures of Spider, is already a tough get, so I expect it has some upside. His second book, This Is Music is another tough get, however the subject matter might be a drag on demand. Among his other early books, I think The Traveling Frog (1966) and Even Tiny Ants Must Sleep (1967) have some potential since they are true picturebooks relying heavily on illustrations to deliver the story.

• The 1990 Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Honor book, The Talking Eggs, written by Robert D. San Souci, has a little more upside than the three other Caldecott Honor books, John Henry (1994), written by Julius Lester, The Ugly Duckling (1999), and Noah's Ark (2002) simply due to being a little older, and possibly due to the size of the initial print. I don't have data to substantiate, however, again, time will tell.

• Next are the other four Coretta Scott King Medal books, The Patchwork Quilt (1985), written by Valerie Flournoy, Half A Moon And One Whole Star (1986), written by Crescent Dragonwagon, Minty (1996), written by Alan Schroeder, and Goin' Someplace Special (2001), written by Patricia McKissack. Over time, I think the two pre-1990 Coretta Scott King Medal award books will appreciate more in value then the post-1990 Caldecott Honor books, however the market has not realized this expectation.

• The notable author books should also be strongly considered in a collectible children's book collection, especially the Julius Lester and Virginia Hamilton authored books. Pinkney collaborated with Jane Yolen on the 1996 Fever Dream. Pinkney did embellishments for the Franklin Library editions of John Updike's Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux which both command moderately high prices in the market.

• Finally, I think the books which Pinkney both illustrated and authored/adapted should be musts for any collectible children's picturebook collection. Currently there is a slight market premium on first edition books authored by an illustrator. In general, I think this premium will increase as the picturebook collecting hobby matures, so consider adding this focus to your collecting habits. Now that the Lion & The Mouse has unleashed Pinkney's story telling energies, I look forward to his future books.

A Book Collector's Perspective, Value of First Edition Books: Jerry Pinkney

BOSTON, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Library Association (ALA) today announced the top books, audiobooks and video for children and young adults – including the Caldecott, King, Newbery and Printz awards – at its Midwinter Meeting in Boston.

A list of all the 2010 Newbery and Caldecott award winners follows:

John Newbery Medal for most outstanding contribution to children's literature

"When You Reach Me," written by Rebecca Stead, is the 2010 Newbery Medal winner. The book is published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books.

Four Newbery Honor Books also were named: "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" by Phillip Hoose and published by Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar Straus Giroux, an imprint of Macmillan Children's Publishing Group; "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly and published by Henry Holt and Company; "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" by Grace Lin and published by Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers; and "The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg" by Rodman Philbrick and published by The Blue Sky Press, An Imprint of Scholastic Inc.

Randolph Caldecott Medal for most distinguished American picture book for children

"The Lion & the Mouse," illustrated and written by Jerry Pinkney, is the 2010 Caldecott Medal winner. The book was published by Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers.

Two Caldecott Honor Books also were named: "All the World," illustrated by Marla Frazee, written by Liz Garton Scanlon and published by Beach Lane Books; and "Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors," illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, written by Joyce Sidman and published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Similar to a couple of years ago, we recently performed an internet search for the first editions of the first twenty Caldecott Medal books, wondering how many are currently being offered for sale. The searches were performed across multiple book sites, ABE, ABAA, and Bookfinder, and were filtered for first edition books with dust jackets.

Across the twenty Medal winning books, there are thirty-five first edition books currently for sale, with an average asking price of $822. In our survey we did not adjust the asking price to the condition of the book being offered, so the average price should be used judiciously.

Six Books Found

There were six copies of the 1954 Caldecott Medal winner Madeline's Rescue on the market, the highest quantity for sale across the respective sample set. The average asking price is a healthy $748, indicative of the high desirability of this second book in the iconic Ludwig Bemelmans' series. Madeline the first book in the series, was published in 1939 and earned a Caldecott Honor award (there is only one first edition copy currently on the market, offered for $4000). Madeline is a 'tough get' in first edition with dust jacket.

Some Other Books Found

The Little Island, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, is another tough find, in part due to authorship by Margaret Wise Brown, under the pseudonym 'Golden Macdonald'. Books authored by Brown have an avid collectible following, with The Little Island being the eighth book she wrote under the Macdonald pseudonym. Brown wrote her ninth, and last book as 'Golden Macdonald' some ten years later, in 1956, Whistle For The Train. While Weisgard illustrated hundreds of children's books, his work in The Little Island earned his only Caldecott Medal.

There was one copy of Frog Went A-Courtin, on the market offered for $1250. Illustrated by Feodar Rojankovsky and written by John Langstaff, Frog Went A-Courtin is the first of two books by the pair, who colloborated on Over In The Meadow in 1957.

Six Books Not Found

Six of the twenty books are not currently being offered for sale on the internet. Understandably it would be a seller's market for any of these books in first edition format with dust jacket. As was expected, Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House and Robert McCloskey’s Make Way For Ducklings are not currently available. First editions in dust jacket for either book do not surface for sale very often. Since 2000, we have seen only one first edition copy of The Little House for sale (Sigh…regrets abound), and one copy of Make Way For Ducklings for sale.

Similar to when we performed this survey two years ago, there are no first edition copies of White Snow, Bright Snow, Cinderella, and Finders Keepers, currently for sale in the market. These three books are not as scarce as The Little House or Make Way For Ducklings so one would think the demand would eventually cause first edition copies to surface. It is somewhat surprising to see no first edition copies of The Egg Tree on the market. Katherine Milhous' Easter homage to her Pennsylvania Quaker heritage is not too scarce.

Identifying First Edition Beginner Books

From the table above, we provide you the table below, which summarizes the first edition identification points for the first fifty-five Beginner Books. Soon to come, links with photos for each of the Beginner Books in the table.

[This is the second of three posts helping with the first edition identification of the first 55 Beginner Books, starting with the 1957 publication of The Cat In the Hat through the books published in 1970. Each of these books was originally issued with a dust jacket.]

Identifying First Edition Beginner Books With Correct Dust Jacket Listing

What complicates the first edition identification of Beginner Books is that a chronological listing of the titles in the series has been difficult to attain. We compiled the following table to help rectify this issue - it lists the fifty-five Beginner Books produced through 1970 in chronological order.

With the exception of The Cat In The Hat, the first printing of each of these has a dust jacket price of $1.95. The price will be printed on the front dust jacket flap either in the form “195/195” or “$1.95”.

The Eighteen Dust Jackets ...

From 1957-to-1970, we have identified eighteen different Beginner Book dust jacket back covers, and have listed them chronologically in the table below. To help with the discussion, these dust jackets have been enumerated 'A'-to-'R'. From this table, we can reference a particular dust jacket to help identify first editions (see table, below).

For those with a value system inclined toward pictures rather than words, you can always visit our web page with images and links to each of eighteen dust jackets.

Some points to note:

• DJ 'A' (1957) - Only used on the The Cat In The Hat, the first book in the series.
• DJ 'B' (1958) - Used on the first six books in the series. It is not uncommon to find copies of The Cat In The Hat with the listing of six books on the back DJ.
• DJ 'C' (1959) - Not common. One does not often come across The Cat In The Hat or the other six books in the series with this particular back DJ.
• DJ 'D' (1959) - Lists twelve books in the series, is the more common of the two DJ's used in 1959.
• DJ 'F' (1960) - We have identified three variants with this configuration of listing 18 books in the series. Five first edition Beginner Books have this back DJ title list configuration.
• DJ 'G' (1961) - Not common, used in early 1961, and much scarcer than the type 'H' dust jacket used later that same year. Both of the first edition Beginner Books with this title list configuration are quite difficult to come across (BB-19 Ten Apples Up On Top! and BB-20 Go, Dog, Go!).
• DJ 'H' (1961) - Quite common to find the earlier Beginner Books with this DJ configuration listing 24 titles. Speculating ..., 1961 is the first full year with Beginner Books operating as a Division of Random House, and potentially could mean an increase in production quantities. The four first edition Beginner Books published in this era are not too uncommon.

Continuing, some points to note:

• DJ 'I' (1962) - BB-25, Robert The Red Horse, is the only first edition Beginner Book with a back DJ title list configured with 25 books.
• DJ 'J' (1962) - It's not uncommon to find earlier Beginner Books with this 28 title list configuration.
  BB-28, The Big Honey Hunt, is the first book in the Berenstain Bears franchise, now over 200 books strong, and is moderately difficult 'get'. Given the phenomenal publishing success of the franchise, first editions of the first book in the series should be in demand for decades to come.
• DJ 'L' (1963) - It's not uncommon to find earlier Beginner Books with this 33 title list configuration.
• DJ 'M' (1964) - Back DJ advertises The Cat In The Hat Beginner Book Dictionary and was used throughout 1964. BB-36, The Bike Lesson, is the second book in the Berenstain Bears franchise.
• DJ 'N' (1965) - BB-37, Fox In Socks, is the only first edition Beginner Book with a back DJ title list configured with these 37 books. This is the last titles listing which is comprehensive, as later back DJ title list configurations omitted some books.
• DJ 'P' (1965) - The back DJ lists through BB-40, however only has 37 titles listed, omitting three. The three titles excluded are BB-4 The Big Jump and other Stories, BB-5 Big Ball of String, and BB-12 Ann Can Fly. It is unclear whether these three books were taken out of publication, or whether their title was simply excluded from the list. Although three new Beginner Books were introduced in 1965 (BB-38 Fox In Socks, BB-39 The King, The Mice, and The Cheese, and BB-40 I Wish That I Had Duck Feet), none of the first editions have this back title configuration. Another peculiarity of this back title configuration is the spelling of Fox In Socks, understandedly misspelled Fox In Sox.
• DJ 'Q' (1966) - The back DJ lists through BB-44, however only has 41 titles listed, omitting three. The three titles excluded are BB-4 The Big Jump and other Stories, BB-5 Big Ball of String, and BB-12 Ann Can Fly.
• DJ 'R' (1967-1970) - Since it was used over a number of years, It is quite common to find earlier Beginner Books with this back DJ configuration.

 Continued in Part 3, "First Edition Beginner Books"

Identifying First Edition Beginner Books

Within the hobby, to our knowledge, a method for identifying first printings of Beginner Books has not yet been published. Several of the high dollar Beginner Books have well documented first edition identification points, notably the Seuss illustrated and/or authored books via the Younger/Hirsch Guide to Identification. Identification points for the other books in the series have not been well documented so those who stumble upon a dust jacketed Beginner Book resort to some amount of sleuthing.

Book sleuthing, although not usually replete with pain and anguish, does involve a fair use of time and labor looking through folders accumulated with years of unkempt notes, probing the internet, auction logs, and perhaps phone calls or emails to carefully culled sources. Sadly, even the most ardent of sleuthing does not always lead to a successful conclusion, especially with such as Beginner Books, being neither extremely valuable nor widely regarded as highly collectible, the Seuss books of course being the exception.

This is good news to us, the 'nor widely regarded as highly collectible', since we understand the importance of the Beginner Book series in sculpting the definition of the 'early reader' and its subsequent publishing success over the past 40-some years. For more on the history and importance of Beginner Books, please see our webpage on collecting Beginner Books.

Beginner Books, With Dust Jackets

The scope of our research encompasses the Beginner Books issued originally with dust jackets, so spanning from 1957-to-1972. Children being what children be, most of the original dust jackets perished or became very diminished in nature soon after purchase. Dust be to dust. Because of this, even non-first, but early printings in a nice dust jacket are to be prized, with first editions difficult to come by. In most cases, the DJ information is key to correctly identifying a first edition Beginner Book, therefore, sans jacket, there is little collector interest. The exceptions are books with 'First Printing' on the copyright page, which will have collector interest, and are listed below.

The first Beginner Book, The Cat In The Hat, published in March 1957 originally sold for $2.00 ('200/200' on front top right DJ flap), but the price was reduced in late-1957/early-1958 to $1.95 ('195/195' on front top right DJ flap). From 1958 to 1972 Beginner Books remained at a selling price of $1.95. Random House raised the price to $2.50 in 1972. In only a couple of instances is the price on the DJ necessary to identify a first edition Beginner Book.

Identifying Beginner Books First Editions

There are three primary means to identify first edition Beginner Books:

1. Stated 'First Printing' on the the copyright page.
2. A dust jacket unique to the first printing.
3. A dust jacket with the correct sequence of Beginner Books.

Stated “First Printing”

Fourteen books have “First Printing” stated on the copyright page. Please see the following table for the listing of the books.

It is important to note that in all cases of these fourteen books, the true first printings will state “First Printing”, are published by Beginner Books AND are distributed by Random House. Later printings will be published by Beginner Books, a division of Random House. To clear up this mystery...

“Distributed By” Versus “Division Of”

Prior to 1960, Beginner Books existed as an independent publishing company, and the books were distributed by Random House. In 1960, Beginner Books was sold to Random House and became a division of the company.

The true first printings of the first seventeen books will have “Distributed by Random House” on the book and dust jacket in addition to the other identifying points enumerated in the table. Later printings of these books will have a “Division of Random House” on the book and/or the dust jacket.

This point is crucial to identifying true first printings of the first seventeen Beginner Books, since Random House did print “First Printing” on the copyright page of several of the books after the transaction. In these instances, the book is a first Random House printing, although not a first printing in the collector sense of the phrase.

For example, we have two copies of Beginner Book B-9, The Whales Go By, each stating ‘First Printing”, on the copyright page, and indicating copyright 1959. However, in the first copy, which is the true first printing, the back dust jacket lists only twelve books, from The Cat In The Hat (1957) to Book of Laughs (1959). This book is printed by Beginner Books, Inc, and distributed by Random House. The second copy, also stating ‘First Printing’ on the copyright page, lists books from The Cat In The Hat to Are You My Mother? (1960). This book is published by Beginner Books, a division of Random House, and is therefore not a true first printing.

It’s really not too complicated:
Beginner Books which state ‘First Printing’ on the copyright page and are also distributed by Random House, are the true first printing of the book.

Beginner Books With Unique Dust Jacket

Three first edition Beginner Books have dust jackets that were not used on any other books in the series. The dust jackets were unique to the first edition book. 

The early printings of The Cat In The Hat, the first Beginner Book, has a unique back dust jacket which was not used on other books in the series. The first edition The Cat In The Hat can be identified by the '200/200' price ($2.00) on the front dust jacket flap.

The two other books with 'unique' dust jacket backs are Hop On Pop, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. While the back dust jacket of most Beginner Books listed the other books in the series, the dust jacket backs for these two books contains reviews of the particular book.

For Hop On Pop, the top of the dusk jacket back states “About HOP ON POP, educators say:” followed by five reviews.

For One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, the top of the dusk jacket back states “EXPERTS IN THE READING FIELD ACCLAIM”, followed by three reviews.

For both Hop On Pop and One Fish, these unique review backs were only used on the first printings. Without the dust jacket, it is not possible to identify a true first edition of either book.

Continued in Part 2, "Identifying First Edition Beginner Books With Correct Dust Jacket Listing".

I was perplexed for days thinking of a surefire method to rid the earth of this unwanted horde. The objective was zero risk of a first edition Cat In The Hat ever becoming a baby's teething blanket, since the collection might be disbursed upon my death or dismemberment. Or sale, god forbid. My aroused conscious led to months of sleepless nights anticipating the ban on selling of children's books on eBay, Amazon, and the like. So proactively ridding myself of the demon host of books will release the inner anxieties worrying about the infallible Pope-like decisions from the intelligent and very clued-in managers of aforementioned entities, who are certain to follow the letter of the law. No, the method of destruction must be total, not just minimizing the risk of one of my first editions becoming some child's breakfast, but iron-clad zero tolerance, similar to how effectively corporate policy prevents the viewing of pornography on one's work computer.

Securing space on a rocket ship is no small endeavor. For one, the charges are in large part calculated by weight. Five thousand children's books weigh more than a mouse, but less than a house. The relative neighborhood is four tons, somewhere north of eight thousand pounds, so mucho dineros to lift the load into the heavens. Second, most of the dad-blasted rocket blasting services send the payload up and orbit the earth, not exit earth's orbit. For goodness sake, what good is that? Having my collection orbiting the earth for perpetuity was far too risky. Why, what if space travel becomes common place in a couple of hundred years? Easily, some 7-year old could start munching on a Maurice Sendak first edition while reading a Tomi Ungerer. Had to be iron-clad, zero tolerance, rid the earth. Costs be damned.

Eventually I scheduled and commissioned an earth-orbit exiting rocketship to take this non-certificated potentially lead-laden payload of death into the bowels of the Sun. Good ol' Sol never let anyone down, been burning for millions of years. Hot too, to the tune of twenty-seven million degrees Fahrenheit. That will roast a wiener or two, and burn like hell the condemned. No trial was necessary, the books a victim of their certifiableless past.

No regrets while watching the rocket leave the launch pad then into the high atmosphere of the sky before disappearing from sight. Only relief that justice had indeed been served, children saved, my soul redeemed. And much thankfulness for the Solomon-like wisdom written into the Public Law 110-314, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

For more on how 'CPSIA of 2008' impacts bookselling, please see Bookshop Blog.

There are a number of children's books initially published with modest expectations, which then blossomed into franchisable pop culture phenomena causing million dollar windfalls for their authors and publishers. The Little Engine That Could, Madeline, Cat In The Hat, come quickly to mind. In most instances the first edition book for each franchise sells for considerable bucks in the book collecting marketplace - the underwhelming original expectations (i.e. under printed) as compared to the successful reality. Because of this unexpected, but long-lived popularity, a multitude of collectors are chasing a constrained supply of first edition books.

Million Book Giveaway

There was no such constrained supply for the original issue of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, with Montgomery Ward giving away over two million copies of the book to their shoppers during the Christmas of 1939. The original issue was in comic book-like format, with soft cover wraps. Giveaways being what giveaways be, most of the two million copies were read, read again and again, received wear, tear, torn covers, torn pages, then discarded, many copies serving their patriotic duty during the WWII paper drives. A small proportion of the two million giveaways have survived to today's collectible book market.

Both the 1939 and 1946 softcover giveaway copies pre-date the Rudolph franchise phenomena. Rudolph firmly took root in our collective conscious with Gene Autry's 1949 bestselling Christmas ballad, which has become a holiday classic. The highly successful 1964 stop-motion children's movie cemented Rudolph in our popular culture, and the 30 minute made for TV film is the longest running consecutive year TV perennial.

First Edition Identification

Every Christmas season sees a number of the surviving Rudolph softcover books surface to auction on eBay, often in tattered worn and torn condition. More often than not, the Rudolph being offered is the 1946 version rather than the 1939 first issue. A very good copy of the 1939 first issue should bring $200 to $300, while a very good copy of the 1946 issue should bring $10 to $20.

This first issue is almost comic book in form, bound in glossy red paper wrappers. The book measures 10-1/4 x 7-1/2 inches, and has 32 pages plus wrappers. The 1939 first edition Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer can be identified by the tri-motored airplane on page 9. The 1946 edition has a four-motored plane.

Rudolph The Greenbacks Franchise

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer has been part of Christmas lore since he entered the pop culture conscious in 1939. From the St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by Robert E. Schnakenberg:

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was the brainchild of Robert L. May, a 35-year-old advertising copywriter for the Chicago-based Montgomery Ward department store. In 1939, May was commissioned by his supervisor to create an original Christmas story that the store could give away to shoppers at holiday time. May was tapped in part for his affinity for children's limericks, the form in which the first Rudolph iteration was written. [...]

The first Rudolph booklet, with illustrations by Denver Gillen, was distributed to two and a quarter million Montgomery Ward customers during Christmas of 1939. Although quite popular, it was not released again until 1946 due to wartime paper shortages, but by the end of that year, a total of six million copies had been distributed nationwide.

It was in this form that Rudolph first became an icon for wartime Christmas celebrants and a lucrative marketing tool for Montgomery Ward. It made little money for May, however, until 1947, when he persuaded Montgomery Ward president Sewed Avery to transfer the copyright to him.

With these rights secured, May set about building the next generation of Rudolphiana. In 1947, a nine-minute Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoon, directed by Popeye creator Max Fleisher, played in movie theaters nationwide. Two years later, May commissioned his brother-in-law Johnny Marks to write a song based on the Rudolph character. The song, which glossed over many of the key details of May's original story, became an immense hit for vocalist Gene Autry, selling two million copies in 1949 and joining "White Christmas" in the pantheon of Yuletide standards. In 1952, a now wealthy May quit his job at Montgomery Ward to manage the Rudolph business full-time. [...]

Robert L. May's prototypical creation was commemorated in 1990 with the publication of a handsome facsimile edition--the first time the story had been offered for sale in its original form.

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, 2002 Gale Group.

Notes:

1. In 1939 Montgomery Ward published 1000 hardbound copies in a gift box as a giveaway to their executives and suppliers. The 1939 hardbound copies are very difficult to find.
2. TLETC, CITH, and Madeline first editions copies routinely sell for $1000+ in today's book collecting market place. In the past, we've written about the factors affecting the collectibility of a children's book.

If you do not want to take the time to page through the thread on the eBay Booksellers Forum, you can download a PDF of the thread from our website.

Prices realized on eBay auctions tend to be closer to wholesale than retail, so perhaps 30%-50% below a 'book store' price. Often first edition books sell at eBay auctions which do not surface regularly in the regular book market (ABE , Alibris, Amazon, Bookfinder, live auctions, etc...), therefore it's difficult to make an analogy from an 'eBay price' to 'market value'.

Many booksellers and book collectors do not seriously consider eBay a venue for collectible books. On the other hand, many do. We know of several ABAA booksellers who source some of their inventory from eBay auctions, including some of the premier childrens booksellers in the country.

We have been active book buyers on eBay for over a decade, and have purchased 100's of first edition childrens books, often at very good prices relative to the market. In addition, the knowledge we have gained is invaluable through the thousands of collective hours searching and investigating possible first edition books. We do have a fair idea of the frequency with which certain first edition books surface on eBay, providing a barometer for the book's scarcity.

eBay Booksellers Forum

The Booksellers Forum on eBay is one of the better learning centers for experienced and new booksellers, and contains valuable information for book collectors. The non-moderated forum does have its share of political and various ranting threads, but the concentrated book related information is unmatched on the internet. Some helpful threads:

• Helpful Links For The Bookseller
• Library links once again from the top
• Terminology, Identifying, Dating and Grading Books...
• Bibliography Thread

Heading:                     

Author:                         L'Engle, Madeleine

Title:                            A Wrinkle In Time

Place:                           [New York]

Publisher:                     Ariel Books/Farrar, Straus and Cudahy

Date:                            [1962]

Item # :                        195185

Description:

[10], 211 pp. (8vo) cloth-backed boards, dust jacket. First Edition.

First Edition of of the 1963 Newberry Medal winner, the 1965 Sequoyah Book Award, and the 1965 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. The first in the author's series of novels for children of the Murry and O'Keefe families. Extremely rare in the first edition, According to ABPC no copies have appeared at auction in more than 15 years.

Condition:

Very minor wear to jacket, primarily at spine ends, light browning to jacket edges and folds, small stain at foot of rear jacket panel; light wear to cloth at spine ends, faint stain on rear board corresponding with stain on jacket; small spot of foxing on front free endpaper; overall near fine in a like jacket.

Sale Number                             386

Lot Number                              60

Sale Name                                 

Illustrated Books – Fine Printing – Books in All Fields

Sale Date                                  08/21/2008

Price realized                           $ 10800

 

Click here to see the PBA Galleries auction page.

First edition copies of A Wrinkle In Time are difficult to find. This is the highest price we know of for a first edition Newbery Medal book. Since the book was bought by Aleph-Bet, a prominent children's bookseller, one would assume the retail asking price will be higher than the auction purchase price.

First edition Newbery Medal books are very collectible since the award winning books tend to stay in print for decades and a acquire a large public following over the years. The Newbery books are approved for most school curricula, and middle school teachers and librarians often develop a passion for them.

Currently, the first edition Newbery Medal winning books do not have as high a market value as first edition Caldecott Medal books and are much more affordable. 

The current method of pricing collectible books for sale is more a learned art than a science. The world of collectible books is quite large and very diverse. Everything from modern first editions to pre-1500 incunabula are sold and collected. Because of the diversity among collectible types, one pricing methodology does not work for all.

Auction Records

For books worth over $1000, auction records are a beginning point for collectors and booksellers. Book auction records go back for over a century, and serious collectors, and sellers of serious works, have access to such. The auction records will provide a reference point, from which years of experience will allow the bookseller to extrapolate to present day value. (A lot said in the last sentence – it is beyond the scope of this article to outline the complexity of pricing antiquarian books which rely on auction records as the primary means of valuation.)

The vast majority of collectible books sold have never fallen under the gavel of a reputable auction house. Why? In general, it’s not economical for the buyer, seller, or auction house to sell $50 books. Medium priced books cannot support the overhead costs necessary to catalog and sell the book at auction.

Internet Records & Catalogs

Instead, booksellers will poll the internet sources for comparable books, then leverage their experience to set the asking price. Often, the experienced bookseller will have accumulated a library of bookseller catalogs over the years to use as additional reference.

For books not offered for sale on the internet or in a catalog, the bookseller will try to find books of comparable stature (authorship, year, condition, etc…), then use their experience to set the asking price.

Book Pricing in Today’s Collectible Children’s Market

In many cases, the children’s bookseller will rely on their own experiences to set an asking price on a first edition collectible book. They have either sold the book in the past or have been witness to a similar book being offered for sale. In most cases, the bookseller does not have past experience with a book.

Aleph-Bet and Jo-Ann Reisler are the two booksellers considered by many to be the backbone for pricing collectible children’s books in today’s market. Page Books, Garcia-Garst, Peter Harrington, Charles Agvent, David Brass, E.M. Maurice, are among a group of other reputable children’s booksellers.

When a bookseller references a first edition book being offered by one of the prestige children’s booksellers, they will often adjust their asking price for a similar book, taking into consideration the market in which they operate.

In today’s bookselling market on the internet, there is more garbage than jewels being offered for sale. What might be described as a first edition is often not the case. The internet can be treacherous grounds for the inexperenced book collector and for the inexperienced bookseller.

When looking up a book, the bookseller has to wade through a lot of material, which clouds the picture, in order to find legitimate offerings. It’s easier said than done.

The bookseller’s experience accounts for everything when determining the asking price for a collectible first edition book. Pricing the book is much more an art than a science.

Pricing Books for the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide

We had to price 23,000 books for the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide. Less than 200 of the books would have a viable auction record, of which, less than 100 were current.

Over the course of a year, we used the methodology outlined above to price 10,000 or so books, using catalogs and internet searches. Most of the books in the price guide were not being offered for sale, and there were no catalog records. We had to extrapolate the market value.

Could we mathematically calculate the price of a collectible first edition children’s book? Sounds far-fetched, but an intriguing idea. What might be some parameters?

The age of the book or year of publication quickly comes to mind. What else helps to determine the market price of a first edition book? What does the bookseller think through when valuing a book? Scarcity? Yes, scarcity would be a key consideration.

What else?

For children’s picturebooks, it would be a combination of elements. Key would be who is the illustrator, with a close second being who is the author. Awards garnered by the book, it’s illustrator or author would also be a big factor. Popularity of the book, defined as being a combination of years in print, copies sold, and cross-over into pop culture. All of these factors affect the demand for a first edition book. Let’s call this the ‘collectibility’ of the book.

Some premises:

Common 1953 book       <less valuable<        Less common 1953 book

Common 1953 book       <less valuable<        Common, more desirable 1953 book

Common 1953 book       <less valuable<        Common 1943 book

Prices Reflecting The Market

We attempted to make the prices in our guide reflective of the market. With a database of 23,000 titles concentrated into a narrow field, we thought we could create a formula to calculate a first edition picturebook's value.

We researched the price of over 10,000 books and inserted this market price into the database. The objective of the formula was to minimize the total error of the calculated price versus the researched market value across this population of 10,000 books. By minimizing the total error, the formulaic value of the other 13,000 books should be mathmatically accurate.

Age, Scarcity, & Collectibility

The formula has three key components, one based upon age, one based upon scarcity, and one based upon collectibility of the book. We fixed the books’ condition as a constant.

The thought behind the age factor is, all other things being equal (i.e. scarcity & collectibility are the same), an older book has more market value than a newer book.

You can see this play out in any of the illustrator listings in the price guide. For example, an older first edition Louis Slobodkin book has more market value than a newer first edition Louis Slobodkin book, all other things being equal.

For each of the 23,000 books, we seeded the database with a mid-range scarcity & collectibility factor. Then we adjusted each illustrator's collectibility factor. Then we adjusted each book's collectibility factor. This was tedious, and wrought with passionate discussion about minutae. Then repeat. Then repeat. 23,000 titles. Then we did the same process for the scarcity factor. Our objective was to minimize the calculated price as compared to the current market price.

Each book's collectibility factor was impacted by the illustrator, awards garnered, author, illustrator/author's first book, first authored book by an illustrator, etc…. Obviously, the 'normal' first edition Dr. Seuss or Maurice Sendak book would have more collectibility than the 'normal' Michael Hague book. Picturebooks authored by Margeret Wise Brown or Jane Yolen, and other desirable authors consistently increased the collectibility factor of a book. An illustrator's franchise books impacted the collectibility. Books in a series increased the collectibility. And so forth.

Adjusting the Formula

For months we tried a polynomial type formula, but the formula did not react to our satisfaction. So we tried an exponential type formula, where the collectibility variable and the scarcity variable were raised to a fractional power. This seemed to work better. We fiddled and fiddled with the fractional powers until the total error against the 10,000 market values we researched was minimized. We spent nine months working on the formula.

So, the end result is, every price you see in our price guide is calculated by a formula. We kid you not. (The published prices are rounded to whole dollar amounts).

Obviously this method could not work for a general collection of books. It only applies because our database is confined to such a narrow field. Obviously there are going to be some errors (for example, we did not increase a book's collectibility factor appropriately due to the oversight of a well collected author). Obviously we need to make adjustments to Curious George and The Little House, Make Way For Ducklings, and so forth. The nice thing is, adjustments across the 23,000 titles is now relatively painless.

We are in the process of researching 10,000+ market prices for the next edition of the price guide. It's tedious, but needs to be done. Then we will comb through the database again and again and again. And again, until the calculated price is representative of the market price.

Using this methodology, we believe the price guide prices are more science than art, and more representative of an illustrator’s market value than a rule-of-thumb estimate.

MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS
Robert McCloskey     
Book Price: US$ 9000.00

Description: Good+ in Very good dust jacket.

Looks like this copy was possibly used for review in a magazine or newspaper, as one page towards the center has been exacto knifed out, and at the top there is typewriter print "Sunday Book Page 2 cols ducks". The page was then taped back in with 3 small pieces of clear (now browned) tape on one side, and one long piece of clear (now browned) tape on the other side. Restoration work could probably fix it, but I have not confirmed that. Else the book would be very good.

The pages are clean and complete, binding is strong. Light shelfwear, previous owner name neatly inside front cover. The dust jacket has light shelfwear, a little fading at very edge, a couple tiny edgetears and light edgechips. A solid very good.

Original price of 2.00 is intact on flap. No medal, of course. First printing with "First Published August 1941" and no other printings listed. Rear flap is a write up of Lentil, and about the author. Potentially the scarcest of the Caldecott winners. 9X12. Illustrated by Robert McCloskey. Bookseller Inventory # 6838

The book is being offered via ABE, click here. 

2008 Medal Winner

The 2008 Caldecott Medal winner is The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Scholastic)

From an opening shot of the full moon setting over an awakening Paris in 1931, this tale casts a new light on the picture book form. Hugo is a young orphan secretly living in the walls of a train station where he labors to complete a mysterious invention left by his father. In a work of more than 500 pages, the suspenseful text and wordless double-page spreads narrate the tale in turns. Neither words nor pictures alone tell this story, which is filled with cinematic intrigue. Black & white pencil illustrations evoke the flickering images of the silent films to which the book pays homage.

Hugo Cabret winning the Caldecott is very surprising - we thought it might win the Newbery, never even considered a 500 page book winning, in light of the Caldecott's key qualifying criteria:

"The Medal shall be awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published in English in the United States during the preceding year. There are no limitations as to the character of the picture book except that the illustrations be original work."

It takes the loosest interpretation of 'picture book' for Hugo Cabret to qualify.

From Brian Selznick:

"My new book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is a 550 page novel in words and pictures. But unlike most novels, the images in my new book don't just illustrate the story; they help tell it. I've used the lessons I learned from Remy Charlip and other masters of the picture book to create something that is not a exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things."

Selznick even calls it a "novel in words and pictures".

From Publisher's Weekly:

Booksellers React to Top Children’s Prizes
By Diane Roback -- Publishers Weekly, 1/14/2008 4:30:00 PM

"Several booksellers praised the Caldecott committee for “pushing the envelope” by awarding the medal for the year’s most distinguished picture book to The Invention of Hugo Cabret, an 533-page illustrated novel—it’s the first time that the Caldecott has ever been given to a novel.

Elizabeth Bluemle, co-owner of Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, Vt., predicted “There will be a lot of discussion as to whether it’s a true Caldecott winner. It’s not a picture book in the way that we like to think of a picture book, but the argument can be made that it works as a picture book, in that the words and art work together. It does break new ground in how a book is made, and I think it’s great that it was recognized.”

“We all love Hugo Cabret,” said Laura Moline, manager of Adventures for Kids in Ventura, Calif. “We’ve sold lots of copies for all different ages. I was wondering if a book could win the Caldecott and the Newbery in the same year—that’s what we thought might happen. It’s so much an illustrated book and it’s also so much a novel. It’s something different; it’s something new.”

Several librarians phoned Valerie Koehler, owner of Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop, on Monday, asking her, “Can you believe they picked a novel for the Caldecott? Can you do that?” Her response? “As long as it fits their parameters, as an illustrated book, that’s fine. It’s thrilling when [the winner] is something we can get behind."

2008 Honor Books

Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railrod by illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine (Scholastic)

Inspired by an antique lithograph, Kadir Nelson has created dramatically luminous illustrations that portray Henry “Box” Brown's ingenious design to ship himself in a box from slavery to freedom.

First the Egg, written and illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter)

Laura Vaccaro Seeger's innovative concept book on transformations, First the Egg uses strategically placed die-cuts to provide an astonishing visual explication of the word “then.” Her richly textured brushstrokes creatively reveal the process of metamorphosis for young readers.

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, written and illustrated by Peter Sís (Farrar/Frances Foster)

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, a graphic memoir of Sís's youth in Prague, brilliantly weds artistic and design choices to content: tight little panels with officious lines and red punctuation; full-bleed line-and-watercolor spreads of nightmares and dreams; color and absence of color.

Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, written and illustrated Mo Willems (Hyperion)

Willems sets the stage for one of the most dramatic double-paged spreads in picture-book history in Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity. Masterful photo collages take Trixie and her daddy through their now-familiar Brooklyn neighborhood to the Pre-K class where Trixie discovers that her beloved Knuffle Bunny is not “so one-of-a-kind anymore.”

The Newbery and Caldecott Medals and Honor Book seals are property of the American Library Association and cannot be used in any form or reproduced without permission of the ALA Office of Rights and Permissions.