Children’s responses to things can often be surprising. My son, for example, would sit cheerfully through the most alarming scenes of Doctor Who but then was kept awake for night after night after a particular episode of Thomas the Tank…
Read moreI’ve always loved the pictures in Ladybird Books – but of course my preferences and tastes have changed over the decades. As a child, for example, I found most of John Berry’s ‘People at Work’ series dull and grey and…
Read moreSeeing some of my lovely books so beautifully displayed at the De La Warr pavilion recently really made me think about my collection in a new way. These books had been sitting in boxes in my shed for years, if…
Read moreBookplates Is your name Lynn Brailey? WAS your name Lynn Brailey? Then perhaps you are being sought. Not for anything bad – this is Ladybird Land, for goodness sake. Let’s go back a stage. Lots of old Ladybird Books have…
Read moreSome go for only fiction or only non-fiction. Some for particular series that they remember as a child. Some want to collect only the oldest version of any title. Some want First Editions. Some are interested in all the different…
Read moreBecause of the huge success of the Key Word Reading scheme, especially in the 60s, 70s and 80s Peter and Jane are often synonymous with learning to read. Their main predecessors, Janet and John, were popular in schools in the…
Read moreAfter much publicity, the Ladybird By Design exhibition opened yesterday at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. Me – arriving, and cold! Having provided the books for the exhibition, I’d been invited to the lunch beforehand. There were loads of…
Read moreIn these degenerate times, a matter of great debate for many of us is not Global Warming, the Middle East, or Britain’s relationship with the EU but which of Cinderella’s 3 ball-dressses is the prettiest. Although it always struck me…
Read moreIt’s finally here. Let the party begin. A centenary of Ladybird Books. It says so here, and here …and here … Radio programmes and newspaper articles and exhibitions and celebratory re-publishing … Some starting now, lots in the pipeline. Expect…
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