A Big Little Books and Disney

KM sent me a treasure from his mother’s childhood. A tiny little newsprint book, in a somewhat worn condition: Mickey Mouse: The Mail Pilot, Big Little Books #731 (Disney file copy/Whitman circa 1937). Yes, people collect these –and even grown men write about them. Author Larry Jacobs, in 1996, wrote The Big Little Books: A Collector’s Reference and Value Guide.

In the day printers and publishing companies ‘pirated’ Big Little Books because of their popularity. One such copy shows the infamous Mickey Mouse meeting the Air Pirates, cover art copied from KM’s Little Big Book. That resulted in a lawsuit. If KM’s book was printed after the lawsuit, it will bear the stamp along the right edge, “Property of Walk Disney Enterprises. Do not remove from the book case.” A similar warning resides inside the cover and on the front page.

Condition Determines Value

The cartoonist for this book, Floyd Gottfredson, is the important thing to remember, especially kid’s books. Plus condition is a high value determinant. Book dealers speak in terms like VF which means very fine, or N/M, a determinate which tells us no marks. Other nomenclature specifies no fading and sharp printing and colors. Value is directly keyed to condition in books in general. We find this especially true in children’s book, and more especially true in comic books with illustrations often crayon colored-in!

In this case we’re dealing with a cross collectible, which means two types of collectors offer money on such a book: Disney collectors and kid’s books collectors. For books in good condition, both collectors bid. The top price paid for KM’s book is $5,000! All that money for pages printed on newsprint. And sold to KM’s mom as a child for 10 cents!

One great Disney historians, J. B. Kaufman, lectured at the Disney Family Museum on these Big Little Books.  They began in 1932, issued from the Whitman Publishing Company under the title of Better Little Books. The first book, Big Little Books, (my dad owned one of those!) featured a hero beloved by little boys. Little boys of that era loved the series. For example, stories of heroes like Flash Gordon, Tarzan, and Terry and the Pirates. These books, at 10 cents a copy, became so popular, Disney noticed Big Little Books, and the first Disney /Whitman collaboration occurred in 1933. It featured Mickey Mouse, drawn by Gotfriedson, with editorial surfeit, rare for an artist not a copywriter.

Gottfriedson loved adventure movies based on old archetypes. In this first Mickey Mouse books for Little Big Books, pirates kidnap Minnie, and Mickey of course saves her. Always on the lookout for market appeal he based the next Big Little Book (KM’s book) on a short film featuring Mickey, The Mail Pilot. So kids who saw the film bought the book, too.

Big Little Books Differed from the Films

In the film Mickey appears defenseless but triumphs due to his smarts. In the book he fights his way to glory with a machine gun mounted on his mail aircraft. The pirate, the dastardly Pete, wants to suck Mickey into his dirigible, a whole Pete-ville evil town.

They then made film short into a comic strip, but of course a comic strip runs across the newspaper page, and that Big Little Book is 3.5 x 4.5 inches. So the editors thought of a new way of setting the story in type. Cartoon images needed cropping and instead of cartoon dialogue bubbles, kids had to read the accompanying page of text on each left page of the Little Big Books. Not so bad for a youngster learning to read.

Looking at the condition of KM’s Little Big Book, inherited from his beloved Mom, I say he owns a $400-500 book. But I suggest he hang onto it as paper ephemera such as this becomes rare, the value will rise. Hang onto kid’s objects, they’re become obsolete as kids today gravitate to technology.