The magazine bearing the title of 'Apotheki', which was customary for its time, and the full title of Paidiki Apotheki, was the first Greek children’s magazine. It appeared in 1836, circulated in two issues and was exclusively addressed to children. It was not the forerunner of the species, but it was the coveted “first”.

Its significance however, is not limited to the early period of its publication, but lies also in its content, which reflects the views expressed in the texts addressed to children, in the pedagogical principles that accompany them, and the shy efforts to move on from their imperatives. The publisher, who wrote all the texts and was the first to try unsuccessfully to create a reading public among pupils, was a controversial educator, author, translator and official at the ministry of education, who later successfully published the Efimeris ton Mathiton, and later still the Efimeris ton Filomathon, 1852-1881. In this extremely interesting periodical, many features intersect that paved the way for developments in subsequent years.

This publication raises and discusses issues which, from then to the late 19th century, accompanied children’s literature. The fact that this short-lived publication was hatched then, with the educational horizon and in the social and intellectual environment of the time, as noted in this study, provided the spark for broader searches and investigations into the phenomenon of children’s literature, which had already set out on its path”.