Beginner Books

Beginner Books is the Random House imprint for young children ages 4-8, co-founded by Phyllis Cerf with Ted Geisel, more often known as Dr. Seuss, and his wife, Helen Palmer Geisel.

Their first book was Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (1957). For each book, the author was to use no more than 200 words taken from a list of 379 words compiled by Cerf as the basic vocabulary for young readers, along with twenty more slightly harder "emergency" words.

With only four titles in their catalog in 1958, they are earning a million dollars a year two years later, making Random House the largest publisher of children's books in the United States.