Publisher of the Month – Ladybird Books

For readers of a certain age, there’s nothing quite like Ladybird Books to transport us back through time to the 1950s, '60s and '70s, when there were few aspects of life not explained and illustrated between the pocket-sized covers of these ground-breaking books for children.

Whether the subject was historical, geographical, scientific, artistic, on school holiday, school homework, hobby or sport, the now iconic Ladybird Book, 56-paged (economically printable on one folded ‘quad crown’ of printer’s paper), carefully spaced text on the left, full-colour artist drawn picture on the right publication, had it covered - and they weren’t only for children. In the 1960s, the police used the How it Works: The Motor Car Ladybird Book for the instruction of officers taking to the streets for the first time in patrol cars rather than on bicycles!

Ladybird Books - the beginning

The person responsible for the phenomenal success of Ladybird Books was Douglas Keen, who joined the company in 1936 as a salesman before leaving to serve in the Second World War. At this point, Ladybird was a quirky side-line produced by a Loughborough publishing company, Wills & Hepworth, better known for its glossy motoring brochures.

Keen was an ardent socialist from a modest background. Committed to the education of all children, when he re-joined the firm after the war, he set about transforming Ladybird Books. He became company director in 1957 and, by his retirement in 1973, Ladybird Books' sales averaged 20 million copies a year.

Ladybird Books - the artists

Keen capitalised on what was then a new golden age of illustration, understanding that the visual aspect was paramount to maintaining a child’s attention. The artists commissioned by Ladybird Books were technically accomplished, able to create pictures that, for children especially, seemed utterly true. Despite the enormous number of series – from Historical to How it Works and Hobbies and Interests to Prayers and Hymns – Ladybird Books' distinctive look was created by a relatively small number of artists. Keen used only the most talented, providing around 25 with hundreds of commissions and years of work.

The key artists were predominantly British middle-aged men who had lived through the war. They included war artists, portrait artists and comic illustrators. The country had been bombed to smithereens but there was optimism, a positivity about Britain’s future which showed in the images.

The artist John Kenney, who illustrated many historical titles, had served in the war and recorded the D-Day landings with drawings on the spot, images that clearly informed his work for Ladybird Books.

Charles Tunnicliffe, famous for his paintings of the natural world and his wood engravings for Tarka the Otter, illustrated Ladybird’s The Farm, and Nature series What to Look For.

Vera Southgate, the children’s teaching specialist and author, wrote twenty-seven of the Well Loved Tales series for Ladybird Books between 1964-74, illustrated retellings of fairy tales and traditional folk tales. She later went on to be a member of the government committee of inquiry into “Reading and the Use of English” set up by Margaret Thatcher.

Some say that the Ladybird Bird books created a utopian, squeaky clean world where the sky was always blue, but artist Martin Aitchison said, “I just illustrated the script, set in everyday life around me – north London suburbia in my case. If the sky was always blue, it was probably because we waited for a fine day to take reference photos. After years of illustrating the French Foreign Legion going into battle, drawing children eating ice-cream took a little getting used to!”

Ladybird Books - interesting facts

• The price of a Ladybird book (two shillings and sixpence) stayed the same for 31 years - from 1940 until 1971 (decimalisation).
• After the Second World War, Ladybird Books came close to stopping children’s book publication for good. The intention was that the company’s post-war core business would return to printing of commercial vehicle brochures.
• The famous Ladybird Books logo feels timeless, but the brand had no logo at all for the first 27 years of publishing.
• Until the 21st century, not one Ladybird book was ever branded ‘For boys’ or ‘For girls’, nor were colours used to guide boys or girls more indirectly towards particular choices.