Random House Children's Books
Random House Children's Books is the Penguin Random House division behind Knopf, Delacorte, Golden Books, Beginner Books and other young readers' imprints.
- Editions tracked
- 68
- First editions
- 58
- Books
- 68
- Years
- 1983 to 2025
Random House Children's Books is a publisher active from 1983. We track 68 editions it published between 1983 and 2025, 58 of them first editions across 68 books. Each book lists its first edition and the points that identify it.
About Random House Children's Books
Random House Children's Books is the young readers' division of Random House, now part of Penguin Random House, and publishes picture books, early readers, middle-grade and young adult fiction under some two dozen imprints.
Its parent, Random House, was founded in New York in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. The children's list grew through acquisitions: Random House bought Beginner Books in 1960, home of the Dr. Seuss early readers, and in August 2001 paid $84.4 million for Golden Books, a purchase reported at the time as making it the largest English-language children's publisher. By 2002 the division was organised into a Random House Young Readers Group and a Knopf Delacorte Dell Young Readers Group, and it had launched Wendy Lamb Books and the transatlantic David Fickling Books.
Current imprints include Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, Crown Books for Young Readers, Delacorte Press, Doubleday, Golden Books, Beginner Books, Random House Books for Young Readers, Random House Graphic, Step Into Reading, Wendy Lamb Books and Yearling. Wendy Lamb's list includes the Newbery Medal winners Christopher Paul Curtis's Bud, Not Buddy and Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me. In 2019 Penguin Random House added the UK's Little Tiger Group to the division, and in May 2023 it bought the rights to Gertrude Chandler Warner's Boxcar Children series from Albert Whitman & Company.
Penguin Random House, formed by the 2013 merger of Random House and Penguin, has been wholly owned by Bertelsmann since 2020.
We have not yet written the guide to Random House Children's Books's first-edition conventions. Until we do, check each book's own page: we list its points where we know them. Know how Random House Children's Books marked its firsts? Tell us.
Authors
Published by Random House Children's Books
Frequently asked questions
How many Random House Children's Books books does MyVolumes track?
We track 68 editions published by Random House Children's Books, 58 of them first editions, across 68 books.
Where these facts come from
- Random House, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- Catching Up, Publishers Weekly, 2002 (publishersweekly.com)
- Imprints, Penguin Random House (penguinrandomhouse.com)
- Random House Acquires Boxcar Children Series, Publishers Weekly, 2023 (publishersweekly.com)
- Wendy Lamb Starts a New Chapter, Publishers Weekly (publishersweekly.com)
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources listed. Checked 17 October 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.