01/03/2024
History of Moonlight Publishing:
The history of Moonlight Publishing is a tale that begins with a small revolution in Paris and a romantic liaison in a London bookshop.
In the heart of the Left Bank in 1970s Paris, Pierre Marchand was spearheading a quiet revolution in children’s books as the founder of the children’s department at Editions Gallimard. Under his leadership, Gallimard Jeunesse was growing exponentially, and yet in these early years, there were challenges to introducing these distinctly French children's books to the English-speaking world, where they were deemed to be too sophisticated, “too French”. Who could take up the gauntlet of producing an English equivalent to the books that were creating a sensation in Paris?
We cut to London in 1978 where Christine Baker, a young Parisian bookseller had recently moved and started working in the family-run Children’s Book Centre in Kensington. She would later fall in love with and marry the Bookshop’s manager, Robin Baker.
Pierre Marchand recognized in Christine someone with the ability to bridge literary and cultural divides. He engaged her to run his English language list, along with John Clement, an ex-international director of Gallimard. Together they founded a separate company in the UK. Moonlight Publishing was born.
In 1989 Pierre created Première Découvertes. a new type of children’s book which included the use of transparent overlay pages, providing a dynamic reading experience full of surprise visual effects. Beautifully realistic illustrations created by the best artistic talents of the day, were printed on white and transparent backgrounds in a way that captured and held the attention of young readers. The series quickly gained popularity in France and after publication by Moonlight as First Discoveries in 1990, the series became a global phenomenon, running to up to 200 titles and tens of millions of copies sold worldwide.
In 1999, Christine and Robin Baker sold the company to John Clement, one of the co-founders. John expanded the presence of MFDs in the US and emerging ELT markets of Southeast Asia. His wife, Penny continued to translate and adapt the texts from the original French editions. In 2008, under John's leadership, Moonlight launched First Discovery Music, a series that explores the lives (and in particular the childhoods) of the great classical composers and jazz legends. A year later, a sumptuous and highly collectable board book edition of My First Discoveries series hit the press, which would run to 75 titles.
John and Penny’s son, James, joined the family business in 2016, and introduced talking pen audio technology to My First Discoveries, for use in the ELT markets of China, Taiwan, and Korea. In 2023, an audio app with page recognition capability was launched to accompany the new paperback edition of the series.
Today, the Clement family remain stewards of Moonlight, maintaining close working ties with Gallimard Jeunesse. The creative project began by Pierre Marchand in Paris and Christine Baker in London to inspire young readers, and to build bridges between two languages, two cultures and two cities continues to thrive.
Access the full story on our website: www.moonlightpublishing.co.uk
[Children's publishing, Paris, London, interactive books, raising young readers, history of inception]
