Ladybird Books is a

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

-based

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

company, trading as a stand-alone imprint within the

Penguin Group Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initial ...

of companies. The Ladybird imprint publishes mass-market

children's books A child (plural, : children) is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers ...

. It is an imprint of

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...

, a subsidiary of German media conglomerate

Bertelsmann Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA () is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates, and is also active in the service sector and ...

History

The company traces its origins to 1867, when Henry Wills opened a bookshop in Loughborough, Leicestershire. Within a decade he progressed to printing and publishing

guidebook A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place designed for the use of visitors or tourists". It will usually include information about sights, accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying det ...

s and street directories. He was joined by William Hepworth in 1904, and the company traded as Wills & Hepworth. By August 1914, Wills & Hepworth had published their first children's books, under the Ladybird imprint. From the beginning, the company was identified by a

ladybird Coccinellidae () is a widespread family of small beetles ranging in size from . They are commonly known as ladybugs in North America and ladybirds in Great Britain. Some entomologists prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as they ...

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...

, at first with open wings, but eventually changed to the more familiar closed-wing ladybird in the late 1950s. The ladybird logo has since undergone several redesigns, the latest of which was launched in 2006. Wills & Hepworth began trading as Ladybird Books in 1971 as a direct result of the brand recognition that their imprint had achieved in Britain. In the 1960s and 1970s the company's

Key Words Reading Scheme The Key Words Reading Scheme is a series of 36 English language early readers children's books, published by the British publishing company, Ladybird Books. The series are also often referred to as Peter and Jane, the names of the main charact ...

(launched in 1964) was heavily used by British

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

s, using a reduced vocabulary to help children learn to read. This series of 36 small-format hardback books presented

stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...

d models of British family life: the innocence of

Peter and Jane Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

at play, Mum the

housewife A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which includes caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying an ...

, and Dad the

breadwinner The breadwinner model is a paradigm of family centered on a breadwinner, "the member of a family who earns the money to support the others." Traditionally, the earner works outside the home to provide the family with income and benefits such as ...

. Many of the illustrations in this series were by

Harry Wingfield John Henry "Harry" Wingfield (4 December 1910 – 5 March 2002) was an English illustrator, best known for his drawings that illustrated the Ladybird Books Key Words Reading Scheme (also known as ''Peter and Jane'') in the 1960s through to the ...

, John Berry,

Martin Aitchison Martin Henry Hugh Aitchison (21 November 1919 – 22 October 2016) was an illustrator for the ''Eagle'' comic from 1952 to 1963, and then one of the main illustrators for Ladybird Books from 1963 to 1990. Aitchison was born in Kings Norto ...

Frank Hampson Frank Hampson (21 December 1918 – 8 July 1985) was a British illustrator. He is best known as the creator and artist of Dan Dare and other characters in the boys' comic, the ''Eagle'', to which he contributed from 1950 to 1961. Biogra ...

and

Charles Tunnicliffe Charles Frederick Tunnicliffe, Order of the British Empire, OBE, Royal Academy of Arts, RA (1 December 1901 – 7 February 1979) was an internationally renowned naturalistic painter of British birds and other wildlife. He spent most of his work ...

. In the 1960s, Ladybird produced the Learnabout series of non-fiction (informational) books, some of which were used by adults as well as children. An independent company for much of its life, Ladybird Books became part of the Pearson Group in 1972. However, falling demand in the late 1990s led Pearson to fully merge Ladybird into its

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Puffin Books Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs t ...

Dorling Kindersley Dorling Kindersley Limited (branded as DK) is a British multinational publishing company specialising in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 63 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of German media co ...

and

Frederick Warne Frederick Warne (13 October 1825 – 17 November 1901) was a British publisher, founder of Frederick Warne & Co. Early life and career Warne was born in Westminster in 1825, sixth and youngest son of the twelve children of Edmund Warne, a builder ...

. The Ladybird offices and printing factory in Loughborough closed the same year, and much of the company's archive of historic artwork was transferred to public collections. In November 2014, Ladybird signed up to the

Let Books Be Books Let Books Be Books was founded in March 2014 as a campaign to persuade publishers of children's books to stop labelling and promoting books as 'for boys' or 'for girls'. The campaign, which is led by parents and traces its origins to a thread on th ...

campaign and announced that it was "committed" to avoiding labelling books as "for girls" or "for boys" and would be removing such gender labelling in reprinted copies. The publisher added: "Out of literally hundreds of titles currently in print, we actually only have six titles with this kind of titling". Its parent company, Penguin Random House Children's division would also be following suit. Imprints of Ladybird Books included Balloon, Paperbird, Sunbird and Disney. In October 2015, it was announced that Ladybird books would be publishing its first series of books for adults. The eight books, which parody the style and artwork of the company’s books for children, include the titles ''The Hangover'', ''Mindfulness'', ''Dating'' and ''The Hipster'', and were written by television comedy writers Jason Hazeley and

Joel Morris Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris are a British comedy writing duo. Their work includes a collection of parody Ladybird books, and they have written scripts for many British comedy series and films, including ''That Mitchell and Webb Look'', Charlie Bro ...

. They were published on 18 November 2015. The series follows a trend of other spoof Ladybird books including ''We Go to the Gallery'' by Miriam Elia who had previously been threatened with legal action by Penguin. On 5 July 2016, Touchstone Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced that they would publish American adaptations of the Ladybird Books for Grown-ups, called The Fireside Grown-Up Guides. Ladybird Expert (Series 117) was launched in January 2017 following the success of Ladybird for Grown-Ups. The books in this series are not parodies but instead use the classic format to serve as clear introductions to a wide variety of subjects, generally in the fields of science and history. The first book published and the inspiration for the series is ''Climate Change'' by

the Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers o ...

Tony Juniper Anthony Juniper (born 24 September 1960) is a British campaigner, writer, sustainability advisor and environmentalist who served as Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He was Vice Chair of Friends ...

and Emily Shuckburgh. Four more titles were released in 2017 by

Jim Al-Khalili Jameel Sadik "Jim" Al-Khalili ( ar, جميل صادق الخليلي; born 20 September 1962) is an Iraqi-British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster. He is professor of theoretical physics and chair in the public engagement in scien ...

(''Quantum Mechanics''), Steve Jones (''Evolution''), James Holland (''The Battle of Britain'') and Ben Saunders (''Shackleton''). The line was expanded with fifteen further books in 2018 and more titles were published in 2019.

The classic Ladybird book

The pocket-sized hardback Ladybird measured roughly four-and-a-half by seven inches (11.5 cm by 18 cm). Early books used a standard 56-page format, chosen because a complete book could be printed on one large standard sheet of paper, a quad crown, 40

inch Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth") ...

es by 30 inches, which was then folded and cut to size without waste paper. It was an economical way of producing books, enabling the books to be retailed at a low price which, for almost thirty years, remained at two

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

s and sixpence (12.5p). The first book in the line, ''Bunnikin's Picnic Party: a story in verse for children with illustrations in colour'', was produced in 1940. The book featured stories in verse written by W. Perring, accompanied by full-colour illustrations by A. J. (Angusine Jeanne) MacGregor. The appeal of Bunnikin, Downy Duckling and other animal characters made the book an instant success. Later series included nature books (series 536, some illustrated by, for example,

and Allen W. Seaby) and a host of non-fiction books, including hobbies and interests, history ( L du Garde Peach wrote very many of these) and travel. Ladybird began publishing books in other formats in 1980. Most of the remaining titles in the classic format were withdrawn in 1999 when their printing facility in Loughborough closed.

Cultural impact

In 2014, the artist Miriam Elia, along with her brother, Ezra Elia, produced ''We go to the gallery'', a satire on modern art in the form of a Ladybird book. The book drew threat of legal action from

for breach of copyright, and some changes were made to the names of characters and logos so it could be published as a parody. In 2015 Penguin released their own series of satirical adult-oriented Ladybird books written by Jason Hazeley and

Ladybirds For Grown-ups

A series (currently 35 books) cover a range of topics in a light format written mostly by

Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris are a British comedy writing duo. Their work includes a collection of parody Ladybird books, and they have written scripts for many British comedy series and films, including ''That Mitchell and Webb Look'', Charlie Bro ...

Penguin book publishers: Ladybird Books for Grown-ups

References

External links

* * Collectors' site dedicated to old Ladybird books * Collectors' site featuring over 3000 images of Ladybird cover art * Collectors' site * Vintage Ladybird Book Collectors' Information site * Ladybird Book Collectors' and discussion site * A guide to Ladybird Books * {{Authority control Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom British children's literature Companies based in Loughborough Early childhood education in the United Kingdom Publishing companies established in 1867 1972 mergers and acquisitions 1998 mergers and acquisitions Penguin Random House

History

The classic Ladybird book

Cultural impact

Ladybirds For Grown-ups

References

Further reading

External links