As a tie-in to the Albert Southwick column about Santa Claus and the reindeer, the American Antiquarian Society’s PastIsPresent blog discusses the importance of the Children’s Friend. You can flip through the pages of A New-Year’s Present here.
The PastIsPresent blog is really great, and if you’re interested in books and reading, this should be in your feed reader. This is like pornography for people like me, this is a good summary of some of their visual web resources, and this made me glad I wasn’t a taste-tester at their apple-pie bake-off.
Also, for those interested in the American children’s book-publishing industry, I recommend The Minders of Make-Believe, by Leonard S. Marcus (see preview here; Isaiah Thomas, the founder of AAS, is discussed from pp. 6-9 or so).
Nicole, Worcester 
Thank you! I didn’t know about this!