From 1957 to 1961, the Doubleday Book Clubs, under the Nelson Doubleday imprint, published a multi-volume work entitled Best in Children's Books. In all, there were 42 volumes published, each issued with a full color dust jacket. The volume designation is difficult to determine at first glance, since it is marked only by a number on the bottom right corner of the title page and on the back flap of the dust jacket. Reprints of volumes were designated by the addition of a lower case "a" following the volume number.

Each volume contained a mix of classics, new stories, and non fiction. Included were numerous folk and fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm; Mother Goose rhymes; retellings of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and The Ugly Duckling; and adaptations of Robinson Crusoe, A Christmas Carol, and Gulliver's Travels. Every volume had an informational piece on a different country, complete with photographs, introducing children to new and exotic lands like Japan, Israel, and Thailand. A love of history was fostered through stories about Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Boone, Robert Fulton, Clara Barton, Marco Polo, and the Wright Brothers. Mythology was introduced with stories about Pandora, Ulysses, Pegasus, Damocles, and Jason.

This description is taken from "Best in Children's Books Index" by Dee Jones, a webpage created for the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi. The page can be found here: http://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/degrum/... It includes a complete listing of all books in the series with their contents.