Ladybird Tuesday: The Zoo

After numbers last week, today Ladybird Tuesday is moving on to words and a book from the Learning to Read series (series 563) – The Zoo.

As with so many Ladybird books this one is written around a subject which appeals to all children – the zoo. The text is very straight forward and designed so that when looked at with the accompanying illustrations it is very easy for a child to work out what it is saying.

When this book was first published in 1960 elephant rides were a popular sight at many zoos and you can see the elephant in the above illustration wearing the seat that would have carried visitors. It seems that most old children's books about zoos feature elephant rides (Topsy and Tim and Buster's Zoo as two examples), probably because they were such a favourite part of a child's visit to the zoo at the time.

Lions, tigers, monkeys, elephants, giraffes, camels, bears, polar bears, kangaroos,sea lions, penguins, hippos and pandas all feature – many with slightly old fashioned zoo fencing in the background. Not like the modern day ones that health and safety rules now dictate.

Even the zoo keepers looked different back in the 1960s though. No sign of the modern day cargo trousers and fleece. Instead it was a very formal attire, complete with tie and peaked cap. Not so practical for mucking out animals, but very smart!

If you have a collection of old Ladybird books then please feel free to join in with Ladybird Tuesday. There are no formal rules to follow, just leave a link to any post you write in the comments below and if you're feeling kind link back to my Ladybird Tuesday category here on Being Mrs C. Thanks!

I've also compiled an index of all the Ladybird Tuesday posts to date – organised by series. It satisfies my inner geek and hopefully will also be of interest to others too!