About Usborne Publishing

Usborne is a major, independent, award-winning UK publishing company, and Children's Publisher of the Year 2012-2013. We publish almost every type of children's book for every age from baby to young adult.

"Usborne is a powerhouse that retains a good, independent spirit." Judge - Children's Publisher of the Year Award

Founded by Peter Usborne in 1973, Usborne pioneered a completely new generation of entertaining, colourful and friendly non-fiction books. Since its foundation, Usborne has been the publisher that children themselves love for its humorous, factual and fun books.

Usborne books are available around the world, both in English and in over 100 other languages. For more information, see Usborne around the world.

Celebrating 40 years of Usborne

2013 is set to be another great year for Usborne, not least because we shall be celebrating our 40th birthday. In June we're publishing a special edition of one of our first books, The KnowHow Book of Spycraft, and some of our first great series such as First Thousand Words and Farmyard Tales are still in print today.

There is now an Usborne book for every age. We publish cot, cloth and bath books for babies and early years books to help children to develop essential pre-reading skills. Our Very First Reading series and the Usborne Reading Programme help children – and their parents – through the difficult stage when they are learning to read on their own. Then, when they are able to read independently, children can choose to read an Usborne book on whatever interests them, from dinosaurs to submarines, fairy tales to world history, and for older readers, our growing list of titles for young adults.

These are exciting times for publishers as digital technologies continue to develop and change the way we read and interact with books. In 2013 we will be continuing to expand our ebooks programme, offering a wider range of ebooks and apps.

Watch a YouTube video of Peter Usborne talking about the founding of Usborne Publishing.

Peter Usborne, MBE, founder of Usborne Publishing.
Photo by Martin Usborne

In 2011, Peter Usborne was awarded an MBE in the British New Year’s Honours list for "services to the publishing industry". Peter is a patron for READ International, a charity that delivers good quality books to schools in Tanzania. He was thrilled to attend the ceremony in Dar es Salaam in 2011 to celebrate READ International’s donation of the millionth book, a copy of the Usborne Children’s Encyclopedia, presented by the Duchess of Cornwall, wife of Prince Charles.

The Usborne Foundation

The Usborne Foundation is a charitable fund set up four years ago by Peter Usborne and his children, Nicola and Martin, to support initiatives to develop early literacy.

In 2012, The Usborne Foundation launched Teach your Monster to Read, a completely free game to help children practise the essential first steps of reading. Teach Your Monster To Read has won two gold awards in the Practical Pre-School Awards 2012, and is a finalist in the BETT 2013 Awards (Early Years category).