80’s Publisher Logos – How to spot an 80’s teen book!

There were a number of significant young adult publishers
in the 80’s some are still going strong. They were easily
recognized by logos that appeared on front covers back
covers and the spines.
 The biggest of them all or at least the most known
is Scholastic and at it’s most basic is recognized by its
little open book symbol either on the spine or back cover.

Scholastic published for children of varying ages – from
preschool right on up to teen – sectioning their different
age groups and book offering by sub – category what might
as well be known as the divisions – such as Apple Paperbacks

Apple is easily recognised by it’s namesake either – free floating
beside it’s title or nestled on a heartbeat arch at the top of
the book. And depending on the size of book it usually dictated wether
it was for younger children – larger paperbacks or teens
average-size paperbacks. Another division released by Scholastic
exclusively for the teens was Point fiction.



Point fiction featured stories ranging from frothy romance , to
drama , and comedy.

Dell was a major contender and like Scholastic had many
divisions usually under the heading of Laurel Leaf –

it, perhaps, was the biggest publisher known for changing
their spine logo to suit their divisions-theme for instant Dell suspense
( laurel leaf ) featured a howling wolf –


Dell romances & romantic comedy ( Laurel Leaf ) featured a rose –



Dell contemporary ( Laurel Leaf ) featured an ink pen –

Stripped plain without the do-dads Dell featured a logo that looked something like
a three leaf clover. ( see top.)

Fawcett Juniper came out, a good contender for teen paperbacks
and like it’s predecessors offered divisions only recognized
by the addition of the word – suspense or mystery to the
spine’s Juniper Berry logo.

Especially for Girls was a division of Gulliver publishing
– usually the books though paperback in heart were actually
published in hardcover with matte covers no dust jackets
and a clear back logo – this Especially for Girls logo is
not to be mistaken for Fawcett Girls Only logo which appeared
on many 80’s series ( Sisters by Jennifer Cole for example.)

Avon began releasing teen novels under it’s own logo –

for a while, before it began under the heading of Avon Flare –

( which is basically an exclusive for teens division. ) And
like all other publishers at the time started their
own divisions –

Penguin Books released children’s books in the 80’s usually
of more elite ( Award winning ) authors like Kit Pearson, rather
then the pulpy stuff Scholastic or Signet was putting out.

Pinnacle Books released teen books in the 80’s and following
the trend offered division via the addition of words on the spine ala
–  Pinnacle Mystery. There books can be rare and hard to find.

Signet was a rare one for teen fiction seeing how well others
were doing it jumped on the band wagon – their books are
always hardest to find especially if it’s a teen book with
just a Signet logo because they switched to a specific teen
logo with Signet Vista.

Tempo books released teen fiction having got off to a good
start with their own successful series Caprice they published
stand alone romances and dramas sometimes recognized with
the symbol for all teen fiction under their logo –  Ya 
( Young Adult.)

Vagabond is perhaps the rarest of all the teen publishers
they published some scarce series , and some teen books but
it’s hard to pinpoint the number of teen books available,
as there is seemingly, no division between Vagabond which
publishes adult fiction or Vagabond teen fiction.

What was hardest about checking out the 80’s books was
trying to narrow them down to a single publisher! Ha! Most books
it seems have bopped around from publisher to publisher
having, in there time, been put out in paperback form by at
least two different publishers, and if they’re really popular
up to 10! To say that Judy Blume strictly belongs to say
Dell or Gordon Korman to Scholastic would be a
daunting task. I almost thought I had bit off more than
I could chew by attempting to organize a blog featuring
the young adult books of the 80’s. And even though I just
started work on it a few weeks ago I feel slightly over
whelmed. I have decided to break things down a bit into
categories and hope to release an authors list and maybe
take it one author at a time and then categories
such as camp books, romance books etc.
My goal is lots of cover art , book descriptions
and maybe even some funky pop culture
ties in.