Albatros publishing company

The publishing company was founded on 15 April 1949 under the name State Publisher of Children’s Books. It was created as a result of the nationalisation after February 1948 with a monopoly on publishing children’s literature. Its first book, the collection of poems and rhymes Say and Play (Říkej si a hraj) by Karel Jaromír Erben, was published in the same year. In 1964, the company founded the Club of Young Readers, whose aim was to promote reading among primary school pupils, and was one of the seven publishing companies that participated in the creation of the children’s book fair in Bologna. The company changed its name to Albatros in 1969 and an image of a book with wings became its logo. Since 1999, Albatros has present the Albatros Award for significant contribution to children’s and youth literature (previously for lifelong work with children’s literature). The company itself has also received several awards, including one at the Expo 58 in Brussels.

More than 13 thousand titles have been published by Albatros, including fairy tales, children’s poetry, comics, popular science encyclopaedias and books for young readers. Albatros publications have been published in 46 countries. The most published Czech authors by the company are Josef Lada, Václav Čtvrtek and Zdeněk Miler. Successful foreign authors include Joanne K. Rowling, Astrid Lindgren and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.