Vintage Classics, an imprint of The Random House Group, has announced the launch of a new list – Vintage Children’s Classics – aimed at and shaped by 8 to 12 year olds and the adults in their lives. It will be a beautiful and affordable series of books intended to inspire and nurture a life-long love of reading.

The launch list of twenty titles will be published in August 2012 and will feature perennial favourites such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island alongside much-loved contemporary classics exclusive to Random House including The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne. A further twenty titles will be published by the end of 2012 with more titles in the following years. Each of the books will be available in both print and ebook format and will contain exclusive extra ‘Backstory’ material, from quizzes and family activities to fascinating facts about the books and their authors.

Vintage Children’s Classics are a natural extension of Vintage Classics, which relaunched in 2007 into the out-of-copyright domain and has since gone on to become one of the leading publishers of adult classics in the UK and internationally. Celebrated for its rich variety of books and beautiful and innovative cover design, recent successes and bestsellers have included the 50th anniversary edition of Catch-22, Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, which was dramatised on BBC Radio 4, and the publication of fourteen of Stella Gibbons’ books.

As with the relaunch of Vintage Classics, the launch of the Children’s Classics is underpinned by significant consumer insight and the series was created with the help of an advisory board, including MD of Random House Children’s Publishers Philippa Dickinson, Children’s Bookseller Kate Agnew, Children’s Librarian Ferelith Horden and Dame Jacqueline Wilson.

The extensive independent research, undertaken with children aged between 8 to 12 and the adults who buy books for them, provided a list of key ingredients necessary for a successful classic. The research also reinforced how, in buying children’s classics for the next generation, adults remember and share their own childhood enjoyment of reading them for the first time.

Laura Hassan, Vintage Classics Editorial Director, says: ‘These are the books that made us fall in love with reading and it has been a complete joy for the whole Vintage Classics team to revisit these stories.  The research allowed us to speak to both children and adults about what they want on their shelves and we’re proud to launch a series that has a timeless appeal, colourful character-driven cover images, engaging child-friendly copy (the back covers are works of art!), and beautiful illustrations and maps throughout.’

The research also encompassed children’s reading habits today. It revealed that e-reading is currently less popular amongst younger children and yet they do expect to consume stories in different formats as well as wishing to prolong their experiences of favourite characters or fantasy worlds. In August, Vintage Classics will launch ‘World of Stories’ – a dedicated interactive website for Vintage Children’s Classics with fun quizzes, downloads and extra material for children to find out more about the stories.

For more information about the launch list visit www.vintage-classics.info