Category
Social observation
A guest post by historian Adam Chapman, inspired by a picture by Ladybird artist Ronald Lampitt “A Farm in February is the title of this ‘Picture to Talk About’, published in Treasure Magazine, 1963. But what Ronald Lampitt’s illustration does…
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For reasons which I won’t dwell on, I’ve enjoyed escaping into Ladybird Land this year as never before. Every December since I started tweeting about Ladybird books, I’ve offered the nation a Ladybird Advent Calendar on Twitter. In true Ladybird…
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Part of the pleasure of re-reading the ‘People at Work’ books today is that, unlike so many Ladybirds which dealt with fiction, history or Nature – their stated aim was to show children contemporary, urban Britain. But when the contemporary…
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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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This table looks pretty unremarkable. It’s plain and simple and with a formica top. Some of us will remember tables like this in the house of relatives – or perhaps have one lurking somewhere in our own. So what’s it…
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Peter, Jane and narrator – and the Ladybird Artists exhibition This recording for BBC Radio Kent was made at the opening of the Ladybird Artists exhibition in June 2018. In it I talk a little about the…
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Let me tell you story about a Little Red Hen. This is a story that has a moral, only I’m not quite sure what it is. Once upon a time there was a Ladybird book about a little red hen…
Read moreJohn Berry and his work for Ladybird books. (Part one is here) As I said in my last post, the People at Work series was one of the first Ladybird series I remember. The first 7 titles represent for me…
Read moreThe thing about Ladybird Books … well, one of the things … there are a lot of things … but one of my favourite things about Ladybird Books is the way they capture domestic scenes in snapshot. Details of 20th…
Read moreFor me, John Berry is right up there with the very best illustrators. Although I’ve always enjoyed his artwork, he is another of the Ladybird artists that I’ve grown into more as I’ve got older. One reason is perhaps because his books are among…
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