A Little Pretty Pocket-Book

by John Newbery

John Newbery (1713-1767) was a British publisher of books who first made children's literature a sustainable and profitable part of the literary market. He also supported and published the works of Christopher Smart, Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson. In honour of his achievements in children's publishing, the Newbery Medal was named after him. By 1740 he had started publishing books in Reading, Berkshire; his first two publications were an edition of Richard Allestree's The Whole Duty of Man and Miscellaneous Works Serious and Humerous in Verse and Prose. In 1743, Newbery left Reading, putting his stepson John Carnan in charge of his business there, and established a shop in London. The first book he published there was A Little Pretty Pocket-Book in 1744. Scholars have speculated that Oliver Goldsmith or Giles and Griffith Jones wrote one of Newbery's best-selling stories, The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. This was Newbery's most popular book, going through 29 editions between 1765 and 1800. Newbery also published a series of books written by "Tom Telescope" that were wildly popular, going through seven editions between 1761 and 1787 alone.

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books, Fairy Tales, Classics, School

87 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1744

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

First appearing in 1744, A Little Pretty Pocket Book was one of a number of titles that publisher John Newbery brought out, in a career that did much to establish the children's book industry in the Anglophone world. Dedicated to the parents, guardians and nurses of Great Britain and Ireland, the book's preface contains a paraphrase of John Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education , arguing that the "grand design" of child-rearing was to make the young strong, hardy, healthy, virtuous, wise and happy. Here we see a departure from the Puritan texts being produced for children in the late 17th century - books like James Janeway's A Token For Children (1671), or John Bunyan's A Book for Boys and Girls (1678) - where the concern was exclusively on moral and religious education. The book itself contained a selection of stories and activities, and was meant to be paired with either a black and red ball for boy readers or a black and red pincushion for girl readers, which (in an inspired stroke of marketing), had to be purchased separately. These were to be used to record one's good and bad deeds, leading either to reward or to punishment...

Although not, as all too many scholars and readers of children's literature like to claim, the founder of children's literature in the English-speaking world, John Newbery was certainly a pioneer in that field, producing some of the first titles that were meant to be both educational and entertaining. The John Newbery Medal, which recognizes "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children", is named after him, and is considered the preeminent children's book award in the United States. It is not clear who actually wrote many of the children's books that Newbery published, including A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, although his titles are often attributed to him in databases, in much the same way that the books brought out by the American Sunday-School Union list that institution as author. I found this one interesting, and enjoyed comparing it to the Puritan works mentioned above. It is far more secular than these predecessors, and (as mentioned) attempts to add an element of play and entertainment to children's reading. This play is still intended to be didactic however - to encourage virtue and discourage vice. It was, like the Puritans texts, an assigned reading in a class I took on early children's literature, during the course of my masters. Recommended to anyone interested in 18th-century English children's literature and/or in the career of John Newbery, and the books he produced.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Newbery gets credit for setting off children's book publishing - but what he turned out was more the kind of throwaway you'd buy at the cash register at your local Pic-N-Save than classic literature. Each little volume, half addressed to boys, the other to girls, came with a ball or pincushion and a set of pegs. The ball/pincushion was half red, half black, the the child was supposed to stick in a pin every day - black if he was bad, red if she was good. if you got all ten reds in a row, you got a penny, and ten blacks earned you a beating. Funsie-bubbles, no? Then follows an undistinguished mix of sayings, stories and rhymes from Jack the Giant Killer, of all people. From such a very small acorn does a giant industry grow.

[Eve O. Spellman · Rating 2 out of 5]

That was traumatizing. While it gives great insight into the standards for children at the time, it is incredibly sexiest. It does offer good advice but there is no practical way for children to be this 'good' every day and hitting them with a "Rod" is not the solution.

Yes, this book is old. Yes, I am rating it based on 2022 standards.

[Atlas Kenway · Rating 2 out of 5]

This strikes me as one of those books that was directed at children but written for the adults who dealt with them, to be honest. Though I can appreciate what Newbery was going for within the context of the time period, there's still something deeply off-putting about marketing a book with a toy for keeping track of if a child is going to be rewarded for good behaviour or beaten with a rod for being a nuisance.

I think what's strangest to me about this book is that it is, in many ways, contradictory and nonsensical. The thing is, it's not Doctor Seuss nonsense. It's dead-serious text that doesn't even realise it's nonsense. Children are told to not eat too fast, but they are not to eat so slow as to make others wait on their consumption, and they aren't to blow on their food as they should wait for it to cool down, but they also can't wait because it's poor manners to not eat at a proper face and heavens forbid they lift their eyes from their plates... the list goes on. The rules contradict each other. They fervently encourage moral rectitude, but when it comes to acting on those morals and correcting people who are wrong or defending one's own beliefs or doing anything more than lying down and accepting what everyone says as gospel, the emphasis is on manners and turning the other cheek. If I were a kid, I'd be confused by this book more than enticed by it. Even the rhymes to teach morals seemed arbitrary, and I can't imagine how they actually helped children understand...well, anything.

Overall, this book was interesting from an analytical perspective. It's cool to see the old context and to understand how children's literature began. In terms of the actual content, though? I'm not all that impressed. Guess it's one of those things where we can't really fully grasp how people of olden days thought from the vastly different perspectives of today.

[Macklin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for school. Dull, but makes good points.

[Devrim Güven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another key figure in paving the way for children’s literature was English writer and publisher John Newbery. He broke with the tradition of educational children’s books originating in the middle ages and managed to construct a new didactic literature. His magnum opus was A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744) whose motto was deluctando monemus i.e. “instruction with delight” (Granahan, 2010: 7). Yet, neither Perrault, nor Newberry nor other writers of 18th century didactic literature could have been as successful and internationally acclaimed as Grimm Brothers who managed to set the standards and patterns of children’s literature.
Excerpt from: Devrim Çetin Güven (2019) (PDF)
Reviewing the Concepts of “the Modern Child” and “Small Adult”— A Plea for “Third World Small Adults’ Literature” as an Alternative to “Children’s Literature”
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for a class assignment. John Newbery's name is on the prestigious award for children's books today because it is considered one of the first books written for children. Times do change with what we as parents determine what a child should or should not know or what rules children have to follow and this book is certainly a product of its time. It was written in 1744 and it does make an attempt at amusing children with introductory letters to Little Master and Little Miss by Jack the Giant Killer telling them to behave rather than a parent. Kind of like Smokey the Bear telling a kid to not play with matches, except the children are threatened with rods.
All the rhymes that go with the alphabet are based on biblical stories, again to get points across as to how children should behave.
I know times change but I can't imagine that this would have been an enjoyable book for children to read at the time. It is just a book full of many rules and very strict ones at that.
So ultimately this is a book written by adults without a very good idea of what would be enjoyable for a child to read. But perhaps we can still look at it as an attempt to try. Look how far children's books have come.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you read a lot (a lot) of early works for children, any book that doesn't include the long and drawn-out death of a character or a scene in which a family debates how to cut a cake in equal pieces and then, when one of those pieces is a little larger than the others, how to cut that piece into equal pieces ... Well, that book will rate pretty high on your list.

Yes, it's not what we grew up reading; and, yes, it's not a book our kids would enjoy; but it's tiny, and it has pictures, and kids of the time were delighted with it. So it behooves us to look at it in its own context.

Frederic Melcher's reproduction is tiny and has pictures and is just delightful. (And easy to lose on a shelf.) I love that he bound it in reproduction wallpaper, which gives us a chance to experience the book as Newbery wanted us to.

[Tori Bohling · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting and outdated take on what the ideal child looks like. Reading it as a woman in 2017 makes me laugh when I imagine being a child and receiving a book of "manners" with a pincushion to add some pizzazz. Although it is very traditional and a bit outdated, I found it interested the way of which Newbery thought of the child. To sum it up into one phrase, children should not be heard, seen or interrupt adults, no matter what. As strange as it seems now, this was the way in which children were taught to behave, and the fact that Newbery was the first author to truly advertise literature to children is quite impressive!

[Allison Hiatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

While reading A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, I thought it was good in someways, but in other ways it wasn't the best. Some of the language that was used by John Newbery was different language (old time language) that got me confused in some sentence or what he is trying to say. What I liked about the book was how he put the letters of the alphabet with a quick poem or little paragraph that was attached to a moral for different lessons. Towards the end of the book was a surprise because he put different and many rules for everything. Some rules seemed crazy, but other rules seemed reasonable. Overall not a bad book to teach kids with.

[Raelynne Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't love this book because of the differences in stories for girls and boys. I understand that this was how this book was meant to be because of the time period but I do understand that it was an effective marketing tool. The language differences and grammatical differences between the letters written for girls and the ones written for boys were interesting and I would like to look into the purpose of this at some point. Overall this was a good book just not my favorite but I learned a lot about the view of childhood from reading this text.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

While very important to history of children’s lit, Pretty Little Pocketbook isn’t very timeless. The morals seem to be tacked on to poems as an after thought and it isn’t as entertaining as modern children’s books. However, the short poems are rather enjoyable and it can be unintentionally humorous with some of the overly specific rules detailed. Overall, it is pretty middle of the road in terms of kids books. I wouldn’t recommend it for children, but if you’re an older individual interested in learning about the history of children’s literature this book is a great starting point!

[Annika · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought that this book was alright. I didn't personally agree with all of the things mentioned in the book, mainly the emphasis on gender roles. But I know that this book was relevant for it's time, so the writing is acceptable considering that. All in all, I found this book more funny than anything. Reading about the emphasis they put on child behavior and what Newbery believed a "proper child" should know was amusing to me.

[Daniela Uriarte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can definitely appreciate the fact that it involved the readers and drew them in by addressing them directly, in both the forward and the letters from Jack the Giant Killer. However, as a whole, it discourages children from being children by bestowing over the top rules and regulations upon them. I understand that this was created in a different time with different norms/expectations of children, but it even fell short in teaching the alphabet in the way it said it would.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

We were required to read this book for class, and I found it so interesting how the book and society thought children should behave. It was very strict, yet I realized we still have some of those rules or manners for kids today. They're obviously not as harsh, but we still tell children to respect their elders, to behave appropriately out in public and in school.

[Taylor Seiwald · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Little Pretty Pocket book is extremely dated and gives us insight on how the world use to perceive children. I found this book very interesting as times have changed so drastically on this idea. A Little Pretty Pocket Book shows stereotypes and the way children "should" act. I loved seeing the differences from the past to now while reading this book.

[Molly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This text is a guide for parents on how to raise their children. The book is filled with fun things for children to do, however, there's always a lesson to be learned and rules to abide by. What a rigid, but seemingly fair guide to childcare! It's amazing to compare modern day parenting to what was considered 'normal' for the 17th and 18th centuries!

[Noel Al-Mansoori · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's very sad to me that the first book intended for kids was an instruction manual on how to behave with rules you must follow at different times. There are instructions for games in the book too, which each describes the moral or life lesson that is taught by playing the game. That was the only thing I found interesting about this book.

[Spencer LaPorte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not like this book. It might have been the wording that tripped me up since it is an older children's book. However I did like the concept of someone teaching kids lessons and what they would get if they were naughty or nice but I did not like how the boys were favored than the females within a single chapter book. But that was how it was back then.

[Amanda Ferbrache · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Pretty Little Pocketbook is a great first book marketed towards children. Starting with the letters to both the boy and the girl from Jack the Giant Slayer this pocketbook gives way to the expectations children had to follow, but given in fun verse that children were expected to be able to follow.

[Aylin Mendoza · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is an interesting piece of literature since it's one of the early first pieces of children's literature. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the changes of children's lit from this early piece to now.

[Kodi Adasiewicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and was fascinated by reading about how society so long ago thought of children and how they should behave. A Pretty Little Pocket-Book really made me think about children and how they behave today and the books they read today versus back then.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I do believe that "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book" plays an important role in children's literature, I did not personally find it a very riveting read. One of my favorite aspects, however, was the beautiful vocabulary and language.

[ErLinda Perez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although it is a long read, it is important to keep it shelved as classic literature to look at how far literature has coming. I wouldn't recommend it as a casual read. Educationally it is good to read in comparison.

[Katie Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is an interesting read if you are looking for a historical look on childhood. I found it harsh at points and was quite bored while reading it though. It's very different from the Children's Literature of today.

[Jocelyne Raygoza · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an interesting perspective on what Children's Literature was in the past.

[Arely · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a somewhat difficult read with a strange and tough stance on proper children behavior. It is interesting to see how much our society has changed in regards to children literature.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although outdated, there is still a sense of nostalgia that this was the first published children's book geared towards children.

[Lindsey Tavares · Rating 3 out of 5]

The words were a little difficult to follow, but it had translation underneath that explained what the author was talking about. It had very well written messages and morals included.

[Brianna Kolodziejski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was entertaining at the least. Listen to "Jack the Giant Killer!"