Making "Finding Out" Fun
By Peter Usborne
Peter Usborne
Founder of Usborne PublishingUsborne Publishing, founded in 1973 by Peter Usborne, revolutionized children's publishing with information books that combined very high educational and editorial standards - and made finding out fun. Within months of first publication, Usborne books were a major international success. Usborne Publishing has grown into one of the world's leading publishers of non-fiction for children with translations in over forty languages, as well as having won the Times Educational Supplement Information Book Award. The Usborne list has been widely imitated but never bettered and continues to earn glowing reviews and prestigious prizes.
The remarkable success of Usborne Books derives from the simple idea that it is possible, without any sacrifice of quality, to produce non-fiction books as interesting and entertaining as television, magazines and comics -- media that most children instinctively prefer. We compete with those "friendly" media in a number of ways, many of them unique to Usborne Publishing.
First, and most important, we spend an enormous amount of time and money producing every one of our books. These huge investments are essential for researching, visualizing and illustrating often very difficult subjects, such as computers, biology or typography, in a really simple, stylish and appealing way without losing detail or accuracy.
We always use a number of other ingredients to make our books appealing to children: humor whenever possible; a remarkably wide variety of illustration styles, including photography, a very high ration of pictures to text; short magazine-like paperback formats; tremendous detail; and a totally clear, simple but unpatronizing text. We never, never talk down to children.
The growth in the sales of Usborne books in the last few years has been quite remarkable, helped, we believe, by a rapidly increasing concern among parents to support the education of their children by providing stimulating and interesting books at home. It is becoming more and more widely accepted that the presence and ownership of books at home is one of the key factors linked to success at school. Many more teachers now accept that parents can, and should, play an important role in helping with children's education.
Meanwhile, we continually experiment with new directions and media. Whatever we do, we always try to stick to our first principle: finding out can and should be fun.
By Peter Usborne
Peter Usborne
Founder of Usborne PublishingUsborne Publishing, founded in 1973 by Peter Usborne, revolutionized children's publishing with information books that combined very high educational and editorial standards - and made finding out fun. Within months of first publication, Usborne books were a major international success. Usborne Publishing has grown into one of the world's leading publishers of non-fiction for children with translations in over forty languages, as well as having won the Times Educational Supplement Information Book Award. The Usborne list has been widely imitated but never bettered and continues to earn glowing reviews and prestigious prizes.
The remarkable success of Usborne Books derives from the simple idea that it is possible, without any sacrifice of quality, to produce non-fiction books as interesting and entertaining as television, magazines and comics -- media that most children instinctively prefer. We compete with those "friendly" media in a number of ways, many of them unique to Usborne Publishing.
First, and most important, we spend an enormous amount of time and money producing every one of our books. These huge investments are essential for researching, visualizing and illustrating often very difficult subjects, such as computers, biology or typography, in a really simple, stylish and appealing way without losing detail or accuracy.
We always use a number of other ingredients to make our books appealing to children: humor whenever possible; a remarkably wide variety of illustration styles, including photography, a very high ration of pictures to text; short magazine-like paperback formats; tremendous detail; and a totally clear, simple but unpatronizing text. We never, never talk down to children.
The growth in the sales of Usborne books in the last few years has been quite remarkable, helped, we believe, by a rapidly increasing concern among parents to support the education of their children by providing stimulating and interesting books at home. It is becoming more and more widely accepted that the presence and ownership of books at home is one of the key factors linked to success at school. Many more teachers now accept that parents can, and should, play an important role in helping with children's education.
Meanwhile, we continually experiment with new directions and media. Whatever we do, we always try to stick to our first principle: finding out can and should be fun.
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