The 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…
Read moreSomething I find fascinating is when photographs come to light that were used by Ladybird artists as studies for their artwork. Here’s one that appeared on Twitter (via @russellsdesk) a couple of months ago – along with the image from…
Read moreJust before I went off on my holidays I led an evening session at the House of Illustration, the establishment in Kings Cross, London currently hosting the latest incarnation of the Ladybird Exhibition. My talk was on the reasons why…
Read moreThere are a lot of exhibitions taking place connected with Ladybird’s so-called ‘Centenary’ year. It’s quite hard to keep track of what has happened, what has been planned and what’s on. I thought a round-up might be helpful. 1) The…
Read more
Not long ago, I wrote about what it was that had led me to enjoy and appreciate the Ladybird artwork of C F Tunnicliffe. So, in a similar vein, here’s a very personal introduction to John Kenney. (This isn’t a…
Read moreAs I said in my last post, I don’t believe a Ladybird Book ever existed where, in teaching the alphabet, ‘A’ stood for Armoured Train. Daft notion. Although a rumour of its existence has circulated for years, I’ve seen how…
Read more‘A’ isn’t always for ‘apple’. The question is, was ‘A’ ever for ‘Armoured Train’ ? (Bear with me; this IS leading somewhere). There were lots of different Alphabet books produced by Ladybird over the years and there’s a story that…
Read moreIn my last post, I talked about the fairy tale characters that frightened us most as children. These characters were all story book ‘villains’ – designed to be scary. However, as I said last time, children can often respond to…
Read moreDo you recognise any of the books in this picture? You probably do. These are just some of the books illustrated by the wonderful Martin Aitchison – one of the most versatile and prolific of all ‘Golden Age’ Ladybird artists….
Read more