How do you know what the date of a book was published when looking at the inside cover?

Question

I have a childrens book called "The Keeping Quilt" by Patricia Polacco and it was published by Simon & Schuster and there are a few dates and I'm not sure which one to use as the publishing date.

Answer 1

I beleive the copyright date is when the book was first published then the date after the edition number is when that particular book was published. If you are unsure after that explination you might try figuring out which edition the book is then you can look online to see what year that edition was published. Hopefully that is helpful. I can usually find the publishing date but its hard to tell someone where to look :)

Answer 2

You can tell when it was published by looking what year it has next to where it says 'copyright'