John Berry
When in later life John Berry sat down to write his memoirs he gave it the working title ‘A Brush with Life’. It was a good choice to sum up the working life of an artist who created such closely-observed…
Read more23rd January 2020
Ladybird books and the Ministry of Defence
All the time I have been interested in the history of Ladybird Books I have known the story of the Ladybird book commissioned by the M.o.D. The story goes that the book was published with plain boards before being issued…
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Wonderful Ladybird things
Last week, on the anniversary of Howard Carter first looking into the tomb of Tutankhamun and glimpsing “Wonderful Things!” – I tweeted a suitable illustration from Ladybird book (of course). But just the week before, I had had my own…
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How it Works – The Printing Process
During the course of the exhibition in Leicester, I was contacted by two or three ex-employees of Ladybird books. One of these was Gordon Hill, who worked as a lithographic printer for Ladybird (Wills & Hepworth) between 1966 and 1977…
Read more1st November 2019
Ladybird books and first editions – an introduction
Is it just me or have ‘first editions’ become a more significant feature of the book collecting world in recent years? When I first started collecting Ladybird books, I heard of people who seemed interested only in first editions, but…
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Ladybird Books – How to Identify First Editions
How to identify first editions Here you can read an introduction to these lists. The introduction explains the background and the problems encountered when trying to identify first edition Ladybird books. If you find an earler edition, please let me…
Read more27th August 2019
John Kenney recognised with a green plaque
Many of us today who have a love of history may feel this is in part due to the vivid and enthralling Ladybird illustrations in the history books that they grew up with. On Thursday 13th of June, a plaque…
Read more8th June 2019
Ladybird exhibitions
I bring joyful tidings regarding two different Ladybird book exhibitions which are coming up this year. 1) An exhibition about Ladybird Books in Reading, opening soon. 2) MY exhibition – ‘The Wonderful World of the Ladybird Book Artists’, taking place…
Read more11th March 2019
Readers Digest and hidden treasure
Once upon a time, when you were young and your parents took you to visit grown-up friends and family, you were probably often bored. No smartphones or computers and very limited children’s TV programming. If there were no children around,…
Read more5th February 2019
10 things you may not know about Ladybird books
My top-10 of Ladybird book trivia Or ‘ten things you have probably never wanted to know about Ladybird books’ 10 The price of a Ladybird book (2 shillings and 6) stayed the same for 31 years -from 1940 until 1971…
Read more2nd November 2018