The BBC 2 programme 'See Hear' is planning to make a Ladybird feature "along the lines of a montage of illustrations, photos of children through the ages reading Ladybird books". 'See Hear' is a deaf magazine programme presented entirely in British Sign Language and will include an interview with the wonderful Ladybird artist of the 1960s, 70s and 80s Martin Aitchison, who is himself deaf.

All being well, the programme will be broadcast on Wednesday 15th October, BBC2 at 1pm. If the day job gets in the way of day-time tv, remember the BBC iPlayer and catch up with the show later.

The FT-reading collector

Do you collect Ladybird Books? Do you read the Financial Times? I have been contacted by a journalist who is considering writing a feature on Ladybird Book collecting.

If you have the sort of job typically associated with an FT reader (?) (I think that means business executive, someone who works in finance, a senior professional etc) then please email me via my website. This journlist is interested in profiling one or more LB-collecting FT-style readers. Please note the word 'style' here. Even if you rarely read the paper, the point is that you have the sort of job that means you might!

Some oddities

Well, what a washout this car-boot season has proved to be! No interesting finds at any of the few that weren't rained off.


I have come across a couple of other oddities in the last couple of months, though.


The first was a roll of paper discovered by someone walking down a Leicestershire street. He fished it out of a skip and realised that it was an uncut page used to produce an old Ladybird Book. In fact there were 3 rolls - from 3 different books. I've always been fascinated by the way the pages were laid out to maximise efficiency in printing - the reason for Ladybird Books success in the early days of paper shortage - so it's great to have an actual uncut page to see for myself. It's an added bonus that one of the pages is from an early Well Loved Tales book, one of my favourites.


The other oddity is from the Key Word Reader series. It's called 'An Outline Picture Pad' and is basically a colouring-in book with line drawings from the original Peter and Jane books but where every picture in the whole pad is the same drawing. Presumably it was to be used in schools and from the teacher's perspective I can imagine it might be of use for those tricky moments at primary school - wet play, last-minute cover for absent staff - but in terms of a contribution to the skills and literacy of our nation in the 1960s it possibly wasn't the work of Ladybird's finest hour - and I doubt if the pads were re-issued with the revision of the books in the 1970s. Unless anyone out there knows different ...

Your thoughts on reading schemes

Did Peter and Jane do it for you?


Ladybird Books are looking for help from parents and carers.
Please read the following message from Shaleeza on behalf of Ladybird:

*Free Ladybird book !*

Dear Parents/Carers,

My name is Shaleeza and I work for Ladybird publishing.

My apologies for bombarding you with yet another discussion topic, but we really value your opinions and are asking for your assistance.

Here at Ladybird, we are all but too familiar with the difficulties faced when encouraging young children to read. For this reason, we want to bring you the most up to date methods and easy to use resources to help you along. However, to achieve this, we want to know what you want.

I am trying to gather information on our three primary Reading Schemes: Read it Yourself, Key Words & Phonics.

I would be incredibly grateful for your opinions on these schemes, if you have encountered them?

I would also be very interested in how your experience of assisting your child in learning to read was?

In order to collect your responses, please click on the following link and complete a short survey: ...The survey

Mums (or Dads or Grandparents), any feedback you give is greatly appreciated and, just to say thanks, we are offering a free Ladybird book to the first 25 people who respond!

To claim your free book, please e-mail me upon completion of the survey, at shaleeza.hasham@ukpenguingroup.com with your name, postal address and child's age/sex.

Thank you all in advance!

Shaleeza (on behalf of Ladybird books)

Describing old books

"Tootles the Taxi, in mint condition (no spine, missing page 3)"

Ok, I made that one up. But bookselling is now no longer the province only of the professional. Now that books are bought and freely sold on the internet, you're increasingly likely to come across books that have been mis-described - especially in terms of condition.

Of course, there's always something subjective about this. One person might feel that a dog-eared page or name on the endpaper are faults bearly worth mentioning. To another collector the same characteristics might be seen as serious flaws. And then there are the overall summaries of book condition: Fine, VG, Good, Poor etc - is there a definitive criteria guide?

I would say that this page gets pretty close to my use of these terms:

Describing book condition

Today I also found these video clips which explain some more jargon used for describing flaws in books - not all relevant to Ladybird Books, but even so.

Video clip: Describing book flaws

and part two: Describing book flaws

A new exhibition

The dates of the next Martin Aitchison exhibition - this summer - have been published. His website states:

"The next exhibition of Martin Aitchison Ladybird artwork will place between July 2008, between 1st - 27th inclusive, at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire.

This will be a Comprehensive exhibition of Martin's Ladybird work spanning 3 decades: the 1960s/70s/80s. The original artwork exhibited will include well-remembered and much loved Peter and Jane 'Keyword Reader' series. There will be over 100 pictures on display which will include pictures from the Sunstart series, Great Artists, Great Composers, Puddle Lane, Science Fiction, Children's Classics and Well Loved Tales (606d).



Most of the artwork on display will be for sale. Prices will start from £100 and will all be displayed in Newby Hall's very attractive gallery."

I missed last year's - so hope to make it this time.

Can anyone help?

Someone has contacted me, trying to find a book. The only lines they recall are:

"Porridge piping hot with cream on,

How they loved it, weren't they glad"

This person believed that these lines came from Piggly Plays Truant - but bought the book and found that they weren't. I normally have a very good hit rate at identifying missing books from the odd line or description of a picture. But these words don't ring a bell. Although they do sound as though they could have come from a Perring 401 Bunnikins sort of book, I've had a quick look through most of the 401 series, without success.

If anyone can identify the book, please let me know - by email or leave a comment.
Thanks