ValueTales
ValueTales is a series of simple biographical children's books published primarily by the now-defunct Value Communications, Inc. in La Jolla, California. The forty-three books were written by Dr. Spencer Johnson and Ann Donegan Johnson, and illustrated by Stephen Pileggi.
Each book gave a simplified and fictionalized biography of a historical figure as an allegory, illustrating the value of a positive characteristic. Each volume was a white pictorial glossy hardback book around 60 pages long with a brightly colored cartoon of the figure, along with some anthropomorphic item or animal that would narrate the subject's life throughout the book.
The title of each book would be The Value of x: The story of y , where x is the characteristic being exemplified and y is the subject. Early editions of the books used a different format: The Valuetale of y: The value of x . So for instance the first edition of the Helen Keller book was called The ValueTale of Helen Keller : the value of determination
The books were quite popular in homes, elementary school libraries, pediatrics offices, and sunday schools across North America. Most of the ValueTales books are out of print. In October 2010, Simon & Schuster Children's Books published anthologized five of the ValueTales books in an edition with new illustrations by Dan Andreason.
There are 43 books in all.Books
