The publishing house name derives from a phrase "a-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha" firstly used in Ivan Franko's short story Hrytseva shkilna nauka (Hryts's Schooling),[3] whose main character learns how to read by syllables using the phrase "a-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha" (stands for A baba halamaha, which literally means And a grandma is a blabbermouth).
The publishing house for children from 2 to 102[4] presented its first title The Ukrainian Alphabet in July 1992. As Ivan Malkovych stated: "At first I didn't think of the publishing house, all I had in mind was an alphabet book starting with the word Angel. I didn't want it to be words like Autobus and Akula (Shark) or whatever on purpose. I wanted my book to start with the Angel."[5]
A New York publishing house Alfred A. Knopf purchased a publication rights of the A-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha's children book The Kitten and the Rooster in 1995.[6] It was the first time a notable Western publisher expressed its interest in a book of a Ukrainian publishing house.
Following the success in The Moscow International Book Fair in 2001, Malkovych decided to open a branch office in Russia, which was established in Moscow in 2004.[7] The publishing house commenced publishing books in Russian, that were not to be distributed in Ukraine.[8]
The new Ukrainian translation of Hamlet executed by Yuri Andrukhovych was published in 2008, for which the publishing house received a Grand Prix of Ukrainian contest The Best Book of The Lviv Publishers' Forum.[9]
A-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha published more than 100 titles with a total circulation of more than 4,000,000 copies. It has also sold the publishing rights for its books to 19 foreign countries.
The director of A-ba-ba-ha-la-ma-ha Ivan Malkovych claimed that there was a failed raider attack on the publishing house's office in November 2011.[10][11]
