Welcome to Our Legacy Project: The Golden Beetle Books Comeback!
At Waldorf Books we are so excited to have taken on this project – the comeback of Golden Beetle Books!
This is a public service project from Waldorf Books and is not profit driven. Read below for how you can get involved!
Alan Whitehead’s books were the first Waldorf curriculum guides available to the general public starting in the 1980s. He guided so many families through their Waldorf homeschooling experience. He was also prominent in helping teachers and schools develop programs in Australia and abroad.
Alan Whitehead enjoyed a career in Steiner Education for over four decades. He received his teacher-education at Glenaeon School under the tutelage of Miss Sylvia Brose. There he was privileged, in 1967, to be one of the founding teachers of Australia’s first Steiner High School. Alan was a Class Guardian and Specialist Art Teacher.
He was also a principal founder, and pioneer teacher (of both the Primary and High Schools) of Australia’s second Steiner school, Lorien Novalis, in Dural, Sydney. He was Chairman of the school from its 1971 inception, until he left in 1985.
Alan founded and was the Director of the first full-time Steiner teacher-training facility in Australia, the Lorien Novalis College of Teacher Education. He was also the convenor of Rudolf Steiner Schools of Australia – An Association, the first and still current national body of Steiner Education, framing the initial policies and principles.
Alan Whitehead now works, with his wife Susan, as an author, social commentator and consultant on Spiritual Science in general, and Rudolf Steiner Education in particular.
Coming Home To What Education Should Be
When I first read one of his books over 30 years ago I felt like I had “come home” to what education should be like. Not only had he studied under a direct student of Steiner, but he represented Waldorf education in a culturally diverse manner that allowed each parent and teacher to bring their own culture into the curriculum – just as Steiner intended!
After reading all of that, you can probably see why, we jumped at the chance, when 30-years later, he offered Waldorf Books the copyright and ownership of his collection upon his retirement.
We ended up paying him an undisclosed large sum for his collection. We also paid thousands of additional dollars to have each of the books typed in to a digital platform (as they were only in print form and had never seen a computer before!). In addition, we invested countless hours converting each of his books into an online platform that allows users to search by grade and topic (something that had never existed before!).
We knew that we would probably never earn back what we had invested (as of January 2025 we have earned back only 10% of our investment after 6 years) but we wanted to see his work continue on a strong platform. We believe in supporting a strong Waldorf community, even if it is not always profitable. Our goal is to cover the expenses incurred during the project so we can pay our editors and staff that are working so hard to bring this alive!
Committed to Accessibility
As a commitment to this belief we have kept the prices of his books much lower than other books that are similar to his, and very close to their original price he charged back in early 2000. You can find the collection here.
We have even created a package that includes all of his collection at a great discount. If you purchased all the books at their regular discounted price you would pay $1,140.00. The discounted collection we created costs only $625.00.
There is still a lot of work ahead for this collection. Although we have already paid editors to do two strong edits of the books, we want to do one more final edit of all the books for a third digital edition. We are also hiring a layout specialist to make physical books available again in the future.
Your support helps us keep his work alive and is appreciated! We believe his work is one of of the most important Waldorf resources available on the planet!
Thank you for your support! Your purchase of his books supports this ongoing community service project!
Love,
Waldorf Books
Leave a Reply