Friends are wonderful people. Friends who turn up on your doorstep unexpectedly on a Saturday evening with a gift for you are even more wonderful. The friend who has made sure that the gift is a pile full of amazing vintage Ladybird books, some of which you've never even seen before, are quite simply the best. It's therefore with huge thanks to Kirsty from Damson Lane that I bright you this week's Ladybird Tuesday - First picture book. Somehow series 704 (Picture Books) had just completely passed me by until this beauty came into my possession on Saturday. A series of five books ... read more

Time for a spot of science on this week's Ladybird Tuesday. We've covered Magnets, Bulbs and Batteries from the Junior Science series (621) before on here, but now it's the turn of Light, Mirrors and Lenses. This book covered everything from why we need some amount of light to be able to see, and how the human eye works right through to how light travels from stars so that we can see them here on earth. There are experiments for children to carry out including simply playing with shadows and making your own microscope using two convex mirrors and a ruler. This book ... read more

Some vintage Ladybird books really do show their age more than others and that's the case with The Camera. Photography has changed so much over the years due to advances in technology, although the basic physics behind it remain the same. 'How it Works' The Camera was first published in 1970 as part of series 654 and aims to take the reader through everything from what the basic components of a camera are (or were in 1970), the physics of light and lenses, how cameras focus, depth of field and how cameras use film to capture an image. What I find particularly interesting to ... read more

A bit of a time shortage this week means we're going to have a whistle-stop history less on the first Queen Elizabeth this Tuesday thanks to this vintage title from Series 561, Adventures from History. My knowledge of English history is sketchy, far sketchier than it should be, especially as I do recall learning most of this at junior school, I just can't remember the facts! For anyone else that's forgotten as much as I have, here are a couple of key facts. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, but as even the worst historian will know Henry VIII wasn't ... read more

There are many, many reasons why I love my husband. One particular one has to be the fact that he now only rolls his eyes when I ask him to pop into the charity shop that he's about to pass to see if there are any vintage Ladybird books waiting for me there. Just last week he came home with a particularly good haul - a nice mix of half a dozen fiction and non-fiction titles for which he paid less than £2 in total! One of these titles was one that I've not actually seen before, Water from the Ladybird Leaders series, series 737. The aim of this series was to provide "first ... read more

You've got Annie over at Mammasaurus to thanks for the book I've chosen as this week's Ladybird Tuesday. From the Fun Guys series (series number 814) it's the bottleneck and the mole hole. The Fun Guys series was first published in 1981 and features Inky, Flop, Toad, Stump, Lumpy and Rot - six friends who love FUN! "Each of them is good-hearted but not very bright and this, combined with their very unusual appearance, leads to many hilarious adventures" Well, their strange, somewhat comical appearance is something that can't possibly go without ... read more

When looking back at the original Ladybird series one thing that always amazes me is just how many books were published on wildlife and nature. The whole of series 536 was about nature and when you see the list of titles together you quickly realise just how much they cover. Everything from flowers and trees to sealife, birds and rocks and minerals. Together they are the perfect grounding for future Chris Packhams and David Bellamys. Pond Life is just one of the books in this series and an excellent example of the genre. It opens your eyes to the huge amount of life that is in and around ... read more

The more I look at my vintage Ladybird collection, the more I see loads of hobbies that I just can't imagine today's children doing. I hope I'm wrong, but do kids today really do stamp collecting? I remember trips to WH Smiths as a child on a Saturday with my parents where as a special treat I might be allowed a packet of stamps for my collection, or possibly just a new packet of stamp hinges if I needed some. After helping my mum clear out her house I even still have my old stamp albums in the cupboard! In fact, just typing that above made me go and search them out and then ... read more

A very quick dash in for this week's Ladybird Tuesday after a stupidly busy day out of the house with Master C. When I headed off to Fibre East with my knitting group last Saturday I wasn't expecting to find any Ladybird books, but that's exactly what I did find on the first stall I came across. Obviously destined to happen. I've been looking out for a copy of Learning to Sew for years and was so pleased to find a copy in such good condition. Mrs Fox wrote about this for Ladybird Tuesday back in February and that just made me want a copy even more. The Hobbies and ... read more

Sadly no royal books in my Ladybird collection so we going to have to do with a spot of football today instead. I've had an old tatty copy of The Story of Football in my Ladybird collection for a while, but last week it was joined by a new copy with was re-released in 2012. My original has the matt picture boards as a cover, but the newer re-issue actually goes back to the plain board cover and printed dust-wrapper instead. Inside - everything is identical. When first published in 1964 this book was very much written for boys who enjoyed football and wanted to know more about it. ... read more