Company Tour: Peaceable Kingdom Press
By Laura Carney

As it celebrates 25 years in business, Peaceable Kingdom Press expands its product line but stays true to its children’s-book-art origins.

In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of – the cow jumping over the moon.” These words from Margaret Wise Brown’s “Goodnight Moon” storybook have delighted children for more than half a century. The book – featuring illustrations by Clement Hurd of a pajama- clad bunny – sells more than 600,000 copies per year and is one of the best-selling picture books of all time.

Annual sales of “Goodnight Moon” didn’t top 100,000 copies until 1977 – two years after it was released in paperback. By 1983, the book was so popular with young readers worldwide that Clement Hurd’s son – children’s-book illustrator and author Thacher Hurd – decided to sell poster-sized versions of its artwork.

That year, from their garage in Berkeley, CA, Thacher and his wife, Olivia, started a stationery company featuring paper products exclusively depicting children’s-book art. They named the company Peaceable Kingdom Press, after Clement and Edith Thacher Hurd’s Vermont farm. The company took off with the sale of its first 1,000 posters of the “great green room” scene from “Goodnight Moon.”

Donna Jaffe, president of Peaceable Kingdom Press, points to the lack of stationery products featuring children’s-book art at that time as key to the company’s success. “It was for people who liked the whimsy of children’s-book art,” she says.

Now celebrating its 25th year in business, Peaceable Kingdom Press offers greeting cards, stickers, games and other stationery items in its product line. The company currently publishes the work of 50 children’sbook artists and has published approximately 600 illustrators since its inception.

Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of the Caldecott-Medal-winning “Where the Wild Things Are,” and H.A. Rey, creator of “Curious George,” were the first to license their characters to Peaceable Kingdom Press. Since then, the company has published artwork from children’s storybook classics such as “Madeline,” “Babar,” “Thomas the Tank Engine,” “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “Olivia,” as well as characters from the “Sesame Street” TV program. The most recent licensed characters come from various Dr. Seuss books and from the toy brand Calico Critters.

Jaffe notes that because of expanding product lines, Peaceable Kingdom Press now uses specific submissions from artists worldwide, in addition to using classic children’s-book art. Design themes that portray princesses, wild reptiles and fire stations are the newest additions to the company’s collection. “The creative group is always meeting with illustrators’ agents to see who’s new and up-and-coming,” Jaffe relates. “We want to continue to work with artists who create beautiful art and have a lot of integrity.”

Jaffe took over as president in 2005, having joined the company as general manager in 2000 when it was purchased by her father’s St. Louis, MO-based company, The Booksource. She reports that sales have doubled since then.

Of Peaceable Kingdom Press’s 17 employees, 10 work in Berkeley, while the remaining seven operate from a warehouse in St. Louis. The company also has 120 manufacturers’ representatives nationwide. “Our reps are our best advocates,” asserts Jaffe.

The company exhibits at national trade shows annually and at many regional trade shows throughout the year. This year, Peaceable Kingdom Press will be at the National Stationery Show, The American International Toy Fair, the NSSEA Ed Toy & Gift Showcase, ASTRA Annual Marketplace & Academy and the ABC Kids Expo, as well as at gift shows in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and Seattle.

Products from Peaceable Kingdom Press are carried by stationery shops, specialty-gift stores and independent bookstores worldwide, but many of the company’s new introductions will be geared toward toy stores. “In the last two years, we have focused more and more on specific toy products for children,” notes Jaffe. “We saw that’s how we could best grow our account base.” Items such as games, stickers and puzzles now account for 65 percent of the company’s sales.

Among new product lines are “Tattoo Birthday Cards,” “Stand-Up Birthday Cards,” “Spin & Go Board Games,” “Game Time! Write & Wipe Activity Totes,” “Paper Dolls In-a-Box” and “Giant Sticker Activity Totes.” The sticker activity totes, which come in more than 20 themes and include five-to-six sheets of reusable stickers, were the company’s best-selling product last year.

Even in today’s high-tech world, children’s tastes in birthday cards and gift products have not changed much, explains Jaffe. Basic design themes such as pirates, dinosaurs, horses and ballerinas are featured on the company’s best-selling product lines today. Jaffe hopes that updates to the website and growth of the toy-related categories will continue to attract Peaceable Kingdom Press customers for the next 25 years. “We’d like to grow organically,” she says. Greetings