My copy of this may not be in the best condition (apologies for the strange stain on the front!) but it is a truly fascinating book and one which I believe really has an important place in Ladybird history. Book 12c is the final book in the Ladybird Key Words reading scheme - the last step in teaching children to read after starting with the very simple "Peter and Jane. Jane and Peter." The Key Words scheme is probably one of the things that Ladybird books are best remembered for and I certainly remember learning to read with them. What I don't remember at all though is this ... read more

After looking at Saints in last week's Ladybird Tuesday we're sticking with the religious theme this week with What to look for Inside a Church from series 649, Bible Stories.   Earlier today I finally made time to look at a little brochure that came with the April edition Country Living magazine - Reclaim the Weekend, 50 simple things to make, do and discover. This lovely little booklet has some lovely simple ideas in there and on which jumped out at me was number 16, visit a church. With antique pews, amazing stone masonry, beautiful stained glass and peace and quiet churches ... read more

I'm actually stupidly excited by this week's Ladybird Tuesday, mainly as this is the first book that I've managed to get my hands on from series 606A which is imaginatively called "Bible stories etc". The book in question is A first book of Saints and appropriately enough was a gift from Danny from Clouds in my Coffee who came across it when it was donated to his church's fund-raising sale. I believe there were nine books in total in this series, mainly based on Bible stories, and this one talks about "our patron saints and other great Christians". I ... read more

Let's just completely ignore that fact that it's Wednesday shall we and instead let's just head back into Ladybird world for a bit? Far nicer. This week we're heading back to the Ladybird Leader series (number 737). There were a staggering 38 titles in this series in total and as I mentioned when I wrote about the water book last year, it was an incredibly wide ranging series. Sounds was book number 17 in this series and seems to touch a fair bit on things that are also covered in some of the Junior Science series and also the Your Body book from series ... read more

With Team Honk coming to St Albans this Tuesday I'm purposfully going for a picture heavy, word light Ladybird Tuesday post this week. I've chosen one of my favourite books from my favourite series, 633 - Hobbies and Interests, and it's also a book which I'm hoping to do some of the makes with Little Miss C this year - Toys and Games to Make. All the things that the book shows you on the contents page are the sorts of things that people used to have knocking around in their house back in the 60s (or even 70s) when this book was first published. I clearly remember my Dad ... read more

This morning I went to a meeting all about the new National Curriculum for primary schools that will come into force in September this year. One thing that I really hadn't realised until now was that the National Curriculum doesn't contain a full list of all the facts that the Government expect a child to learn in a specific school year, but instead it talks about all the skills that children are expected to learn in each subject, and it can then be left to individual schools to deliver a curriculum that is right for their school. This means that in history for example it's not ... read more

I may keep harping on about it, but some of my favourite old Ladybird books are those which feature some of the hobbies of yesteryear. The things which have now been superseded by games consoles and iphones. This week's book covers one such hobby - 'How to do it' Woodwork. The 'How to do it' series (series number 731) only lasted for two books (Woodwork and Metalwork) before it was subsumed in the Learnabout series (series 634). When the book was republished in the new series the cover was changed to fit in with the Learnabout style of a single picture in a circle, but the ... read more

One particular thing that I love about searching for Ladybird books is that you never know what you're going to find and sometime you come across a book and a whole Ladybird series that you haven't heard of before. That's exactly what happened when Mr C bought me a few books as a Christmas present. One of them - Battle of the Little Big Horn is part of Series 707 (Cowboys and Indians) a series of just four books which had completely passed me by until then. Now if you consider my knowledge of English history to be patchy then my knowledge of American history like this is off the ... read more