Other work by the Ladybird artists
‘April’
Shell Guide to Trees and Shrubs Artist: SR Badmin

The key word Peter and Jane series

We all need a cardigan

In the actual picture, she looks pensive but not tearful. She is a little May Queen from an early alphabet book.

The cover of a jigsaw box. The illustration is made up of 18 different ladybird illustrations, some cover pictures and some internal pictures, all featuring young children or toddlers.

A family friend found this vintage Ladybird 1000-piece jigsaw in a charity shop and gave it to me.

Isn’t is a thing of beauty?

Murray and Pierre return to the lab after an evening out to find a blue glow emanating from the aparatus

On this day, 20th April 1902 Marie Skłodowska Curie and husband Pierre successfully isolated one tenth of a gram of Radium, the first sample of a radioactive element, from 8 tons of pitchblende.
Artist: Frank Hampson
‘Madam Curie’ (1970)

A picture of a canal tow path and canal barge passing by. There is a well-camouflaged duck ‘hiding’ among the flora.

“From the moss-covered old alder stump young leaves are breaking, and close beside the stump there is a wild duck on her nest”
Writer: EL Grant Watson
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe
‘What to Look for in Spring’ (1961)

Glad it’s just a moment for you 🙂

Time well spent 👍

If that’s all, you did well

Take a compensatory mark for creativity 👍

The official answers are there now

Indeed!

Stile yes. Shoes no

Here are the official answers. How did you do?
(Artist: Don Harley)

An observation test for your inner 8-year-old.
Can you spot 12 deliberate mistakes?

From Treasure magazine, 1965
Official answers coming soon

Two stewards in livery serve a couple in suits a restaurant- grade meal in a train dining carriage

The modern world in old Ladybird books.
Eating on trains, 1974.
Artist: Frank Humphris

During a picnic, a boy, a girl and their father start to play ball. The father, in a suit, looks rather stiff and out of place.

In the updated scene, the dad, in casual clothes, is really into the game and is reaching high to steal the ball from his son

Old Ladybird books updated.
The birth of ‘Competitive Dad’.

(1964 and 1976)
Artists: John Berry, Martin Aitchison

A small yellow chick runs in a panic when an acorn falls on its head, believing that the sky is falling in

Before social media, we had
‘Chicken Licken’ (1969)

Artist: Robert Lumley

In an a farm orchard in early spring a finely coloured hen struts through the grass and daffodils

In the orchard
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe
(The Farm, 1958)

Over a wall a spectacularly well maintained and huge garden is displayed in all its springtime glory. There are fruit trees, daffodils, a rockery, beautifully tended lawn, veg patch etc etc

Other work by the Ladybird artists.
‘April’ 1958
The neighbours’ garden
Artist: Ronald Lampitt

Yes - I noticed that.
This is the revised, updated illustration.
She was originally in white and yellow

A black and white photograph of a girl wearing jeans and a sweater with long hair in a swing

In the final illustration, Peter is pushing Jane in the swing

‘Jane’ in the early 1970s - artist Harry Wingfield ‘s original reference photo - and the illustration it became

🙏

A slightly stylised view of the Castle rising up through trees with distant hills, a blue sky and fluffy clouds, rosy in the evening light

A vibrant proof copy of SR Badmin‘s Ludlow Castle travel poster

No, they both make and decorate everything. That was important to the editorial director

That’s in a slightly later book

At school, but not at home

This is the only vintage Ladybird book I can think of where the girl is in pink and the boys is in blue - and it’s just because they just were.
It wasn’t a thing in Ladybird Land - or in the 1960s

It ought to have been a problem. We were expected in these books to have access 200s of them! And yet somehow we did. Everyone around me was making and repairing their own clothes.