For small children, the first aid was a hornbook , which typically was a printed page showing the alphabet, some syllables for practice reading, the Lord's Prayer, and maybe the numbers, glued down to a flat piece of wood with a handle. They were called hornbooks because of a piece of horn tacked down over the printed page to protect it (yes, you can heat cow's horn and press it flat, scrape it thin and almost transparent, mold it into shapes- that's why there were craftsmen called horners: and still are ). There was also typically a hole in the handle, so they could be hung up on the wall or easily carried by a loop of string.

Once the child had learned his/her ABC's and numbers, there were some Chapbooks intended for them. Chapbooks were small books, of only around 24 pages, cheaply bound, but with illustrations. They had tales, like Jack the Giant Killer, or stories from the Bible, or cautionary stories or humorous stories set in rhyme. The subject matter was similar to that of broadside ballads, ( not necessarily for children) and the sellers of them, or chapmen, often sold both chapbooks and broadside ballads..