Big Little Book series

Other publishers, notably Saalfield, adopted this format after Whitman achieved success with its early titles, priced initially at 10¢ each, later rising to 15¢.

Stories were often related to radio programs (The Shadow), comic strips (The Gumps), children's books (Uncle Wiggily), novels (John Carter of Mars) and movies (Bambi).

After the first Big Little Book, The Adventures of Dick Tracy, was published (December 1932), numerous titles were sold through Woolworth's and other retail store systems during the 1930s.

There were also numerous books published that featured original characters created particularly for the Big Little series, and those are now little remembered, usually selling for $10 or less each in any condition.

A few titles were ostensibly non-fiction works about famous people, as with Whitman's Billy The Kid (1935) and The Story of Jackie Cooper (1933), which proves that biographies of child movie stars are no recent phenomenon.