[2] The publishing house name derives from a phrase "a-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha" firstly used in Ivan Franko's short story Hrytseva shkilna nauka (Hryts's Schooling),[3] whose main character learns how to read by syllables using the phrase "a-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha" (stands for A baba halamaha, which literally means And a grandma is a blabbermouth).

As Ivan Malkovych stated: "At first I didn't think of the publishing house, all I had in mind was an alphabet book starting with the word Angel.

"[5] A New York publishing house Alfred A. Knopf purchased a publication rights of the A-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha's children book The Kitten and the Rooster in 1995.

The director of A-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha Ivan Malkovych claimed that there was a failed raider attack on the publishing house's office in November 2011.

Yuriy Andrukhovych, Mykola Vingranovsky, Lina Kostenko, Sashko Dermansky, Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko, Andriy Kokotiukha, Vsevolod Nestayko, Dmytro Pavlychko, Volodymyr Rutkivsky, Oleksandr Havrosh, and Yuriy Vynnychuk have collaborated with the publishing house.