Talk:Toy book

A fact from Toy book appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 July 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in the Victorian era the concept of a picture book for children, with illustrations dominating the text, was popularized with small books called toy books?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/July.

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Six illustrated pages[edit]

Were six illustrated pages typical thruout the history covered here? So the lead implies, which needs attention in the lead and body if not typical thruout. For example, did "the triumvirate of Victoria toy book illustrators" Caldecott, Crane, and Greenaway all work primarily with six illustrations to narrate a story?

If so, was there a typical format for the entire book? Example: eight bound sheets of paper, sixteen pages; three forepages, narrative text and illustrations alternating left/right on pages 4 to 15, and one afterpage.

P.S. This may be related: One WorldCat subject class is "Toy and movable books". Three modern books that it places in the class are The Jolly Postman series by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, 1986 to 1995. These books have more pages, I understand, typically with both text and illustration, I understand, but they include six envelopes with enclosures. (One WorldCat record for the first U.S. edition of book one[1] specifies, "Twelve of the pages have been made into six envelopes and contain eight letters and cards." One record for the first edition of book two[2] notes "6 letters in pockets". These are catalog records from participating libraries, which vary even among copies of the same edition, and many provide no description or nothing useful.) --P64 (talk) 14:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the links. "Toy book" was a designation given to books during a fairly specific period, but I haven't been able to expand much because I need more sources for this page. My understanding is that typically or generally the early toybooks were of only six illustrated pages and yes that applies to Calecott, Crane and Greenaway. In the late 19th century books became more elaborate and were longer, more sheets and illustrations etc., so I'll tweak that sentence a bit, but I want to check the sources first - which are packed away and need to be dug out. I'm also fairly certain that modern books aren't given that designation. I can't answer the question about the typical format but will see what I can find. Truthkeeper (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, good job on the article so far. My second thought was a lazy upgrade to C/Mid, but I scanned the lot we call High-importance and fell into depression :-(

For what it's worth, after starting The Jolly Postman#Series and much expanding the article otherwise I realized that I need to find copies of the books in my local public library network. "48 pages, envelopes, and enclosures" is a compromise of previous 48 pp with all the vague and conflicting info I have gleaned online.

P.S. I'm not sure what WorldCat means by "toy and movable books". It appears that we should move pop-up book to movable book and that "toy book" in this old technical sense is unrelated. Perhaps it's a neologism meaning book designed for a child to play with, like a toy, but online amateur reviews urge parents not to let their kids ruin these wonders. --P64 (talk) 15:51, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You actually bring up a good point and one that I think might have to be put into a different article - something like History of Children's Books. Moveables are different than pop-ups - they have moving parts instead of parts that pop-up, but all of this needs to be defined somewhere. Also interesting are these types of thing [3] that Beatrix Potter experimented with - see The Story of Miss Moppet. I'm fairly knowledgeable about the 19th century books, less so about 20th century children's books. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:05, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]