The Ladybird books for pre-schoolers have to be some of my favourite ones – possibly because they remind me so much of the very early years of my childhood. A couple of years ago now I features the First Picture Book here on Ladybird Tuesday and since then I’ve been looking out for the rest of the series, but had little luck until last month. After months of fruitless looking my old regular charity shop source suddenly had a whole box full of Ladybird books for the ridiculous price of 3 for 99p. Amazingly four from the Picture Book series, series 704, were in there and in wonderful condition too!
This fifth and final book in the series is definitely the most advanced of them with some words that I might not yet expect Master C to have quite mastered. Stream is one such word. He certainly knows about rivers and ponds, but I’m not sure he’s quite ready for the extra complication of size of the water dictating the name. When we took him to the seaside on holiday recently it was still a “very big river” as far as he was concerned!
As with the First Picture Book that I covered before, each page includes some prompts for the grown up reading the book with a child. This may seen a bit contrived, but if you’re an exhausted parent they’re actually quite useful.
Like so many Ladybird books of the time what it does do though is give you a fascinating look at what was deemed important or common for children of the time. I love the look of the vintage roller skates that are included, but I have to admit to being a tad puzzled by the inclusion of dates. You just don’t see many people eating them nowadays, yet if I remember back I do seem to recall my parents often having some on the sideboard.
I’m also not totally sure that a gun and holster would be featured in many children’s books today!
A wonderful look back at what the world might have looked like through the eyes of a child in 1973.
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. Thank you!
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