If you have been following the story, you know that the special M.O.D- commissioned Ladybird book is the holy grail of Ladybird book collecting – a book thought to exist but which has never been seen. The story so far…
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Jane – fictional heroine of the Peter and Jane reading scheme books – was my role model, growing up. In some ways we had a great deal in common: we were both born in the mid-1960s, we both had one…
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If you were going to appoint a governement made up of Ladybird book characters, who would you choose? Here’s my top team: Chancellor of the Exchequer: The Ogre from Jack and the Beanstalk. Keeps tight control of financial affairs –…
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My Aunt died last month. She never married and myself and my brother were her only younger relatives. As I was clearing her things, last week, I came across this short piece she had written. When and why, I’ll probably…
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You can normally judge a vintage Ladybird by its cover. For many years the standard approach was to use an illustration from inside the book on the cover. But some Ladybird books really under-sold themselves on the shelf. This is…
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Vintage Ladybird books are famously hard to date because the dating conventions usually used by booksellers rarely work with Ladybird books. The following pages will help you take a book and work out its date. They WON’T help you work…
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Wild flowers and garden flowers. You’d think the skills required to illustate one book or the other would be much the same – but that’s not how one artist saw it. ‘British Wild Flowers’ (1957) is one of the best-loved…
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The following is the text of a brochure created to accompany an exhibition of Harry Wingfield’s Ladybird illustrations, held at the New Art Gallery, Walsall, Feb 1st – 17th March 2002
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The lovely Kate Garner has written this catchy song which pays homage to the ‘well loved’ books of her childhood. I’ve added a gallery of all the books that she mentions – so you can play the song and click…
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Lynne Bradbury, 9th June 1947 – 9th June 2020 I’d like to take you on a journey through a cardboard box, and on the way I’m going to talk about Lynne Bradbury. What part did Lynne Bradbury play in the…
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