Jumbo

The publishing house and its history

According to the motto »For children only the best«, the publishing house JUMBO in Hamburg has been publishing exciting high-quality audiobooks for 30 years. The labels GOYALiT and GOYAlibre provide audiobooks for adults, adolescents and All Age. Along with other entrepreneurs, Gabriele Swiderski and Ulrich Maske founded JUMBO in 1991. Since 2020 Carla Swiderski, the daughter of managing director Gabriele Swiderski and program manager Ulrich Maske, joined the publishing house as part of programm management.The red elephant-logo with high recognition factor was designed by Jutta Bauer. Overall, the program includes more than 1200 titles. With more than 30 current employees, the JUMBO publishing house is one of the largest German audiobook publishers and remains independent from other corporate groups. Many of JUMBO’s productions have been ranked on the »hr2-Hörbuchbestenliste« and have received numerous awards, such as the »Deutsche Schallplattenkritik« prize.

Program

In JUMBO’s audiobooks, characters like »Bobo Siebenschläfer« or »Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt« (»The Very Hungry Caterpillar«) excite listeners from the age of two upwards. Important components of the program are well-known series such as ›Das magische Baumhaus‹. The ›Wieso? Weshalb? Warum?‹ series does not only inform but is fun as well. Since June 2021 first-time readers can listen and read along to non-fictional stories in two rates of speaking. Furthermore, JUMBO publishes audiobooks by renowned German authors, including Kirsten Boie, Franziska Gehm and Isabel Abedi. Christine Nöstlinger, Andreas H. Schmachtl, Gudrun Pausewang, Alice Pantermüller and Klaus-Peter Wolf are part of the program, too.

Artists such as Matthias Meyer-Göllner, Ulrich Maske, Bettina Göschl, Robert Metcalf and others contribute to the musical diversity of the program. Marko Simsa aims to and succeeds in excitingly introducing classical music to children.

Audiobooks for adolescents and young adults are published under the label GOYAlibre. Cornelia Funke’s ›Tintenwelt‹, Kirsten Boie’s »Alhambra«, Monika Feth’s »Der Erdbeerpflücker«, the audio dramas »Krabat« and »Die Welle« as well as young adult novels by Antje Babendererde and Morton Rhue combine suspense with literary form. Dystopias and fantasy-trilogies by Bianca Iosivoni, Gina Mayer or Kiera Cass are as much a stable component of JUMBO’s program as the popular series ›Die Legende der Wächter‹ by Kathryn Lasky or thrilling Young Adult Romance by Stella Tack (»Kiss me once«).

Renowned German actors and actresses lend their voices to the stories: Katharina Thalbach, Regina Lemnitz, Stefan Kaminski, Dietmar Wunder, Josefine Preuß, Jürgen Uter, Karl Menrad, Robert Missler, Julia Nachtmann, Rainer Strecker, Jacob Weigert, Julian Greis and Bernd Stephan among others.

Parallel to the audio books, JUMBO has also been publishing books for many years. Besides lovely illustrated picture books by Rocio Bonilla and children's books like the series "Die Nordseedetektive" by Bettina Göschl and the successful author Klaus-Peter Wolf, JUMBO is publishing books with stories, songs and games based on productions from the audio program. The program involves colorfull illustrated picture books, age-appropriate stories and classic literature for the whole family.

Well-known illustrators of the JUMBO books are Silke Brix, Andrea Reitmeyer, Franziska Harvey, Rocio Bonilla, Annette Swoboda, Adolfo Serra, Nele Anders, Leonie Daub and more.

Visit us on www.jumboverlag.de