Ladybird. One of the family. The Official blog of Ladybird books UK

Topsy and Tim Visit London! A great read and a great day out!

The new Topsy and Tim book - Topsy and Tim Visit London - is a real treat for fans of the twins or for those who are planning on visiting the Capital with children. To celebrate the release of the book, we thought it would be fun to take the twins out and about near Ladybird Towers, snapping some shots along the way. See if you can spot where they are before you read the caption!

On the River Thames, passing The London Eye!

Having fun watching the entertainers in the Covent Garden Piazza

Shall we pop down and get on the underground? Or shall we run for that bus?

Posing in front of Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square.  Wow! That statue is SO high up.

The tallest clock we've ever seen. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

A classic red London phone box (and very tired twins at the end of a long day.....)

 

WIN TOPSY AND TIM GOODIES!  

We've got a copy of Topsy and Tim Visit London, plus a set of these exclusive Topsy and Tim hand puppets to give away. To be in with a chance of winning,  just add a comment to this post, telling us where in London you most enjoy visiting with your children.

Enter by midnight 10th June 2012. One winner will be chosen at random and will be notified by 12th June 2012.

Imagination and magical worlds - the power of audio books

Ever since I was a little girl I loved being told stories and I’ve always particularly loved audio. I think this stemmed from my nan, who was an avid radio fan, and I would sit with her at night listening to the stories and people over the airwaves. I still love audio as an adult; I regularly tune into Radio 4 Extra and listen to stories for adults as well as children!

One of the most memorable books from my childhood were my tapes of Tolkien’s “Tales of the Perilous Realms” – my brother and I still talk fondly of these audiobooks we listened to growing up together.

These audio tapes gave me access to the stories that I often had trouble reading, opened up new worlds, gave me new words and took me on a journey were I filled in the images with my own imagination.

Audio can be a magical thing for children, and it certainly was for me. I remember the creaking of the trees and the crunching of feet walking on the ground in the stories I listened to. It fired up my imagination and gave me a long-term love for storytelling and audio.

Ladybird has recently released the fabulous Peppa Pig stories as audiobooks - Volume 1 Peppa Goes swimming and other stories and Volume 2 Dentist Trip and other stories.

                

These collections of stories are sure to delight Peppa fans as well as those little ones who haven't yet heard of Peppa Pig (yes there may be some out there!) but who just love to listen to a great story! If you try them, do let us know how they go down in your house.

Falling in love with reading

Ladybird editor Katie, who has been busy creating our new fiction series Genie Street, shares some of her childhood memories of how she fell in love with reading. 

As a book editor it’s fair to say I love to read and it’s rare to find me without a book in my hand these days. There is something magical and unique about getting lost in the pages of a story, learning something new about a character and, of course, reaching the end of a great book.

Katie with her favourite childhood book, Dogger

When I was young, my dad would read my favourite childhood picture book, Shirley Hughes’ Dogger, to me night after night and it wasn’t long before I was desperate to be able to read it on my own. It wasn’t enough to have my mum or dad share these stories with me – I was ready to unlock their secrets myself. If I wanted to read these books on my own, I would have to learn to read.

And so my reading journey really began…

First stop was Roger Red-Hat by Sheila McCullagh. I can still remember the satisfaction I felt when I reached the end of a sentence and then the end of the page. And absolutely nothing compared to completing the book all by myself before moving on to Billy Blue-Hat. The sense of achievement I felt was wonderful, and I wanted more!

Once I had mastered the basics, my parents couldn’t hold me back. I was reading wherever and whenever I could; in the bath, on long car journeys and even under the duvet at night with only my torch for company. Pretty soon I was devouring Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch, Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Roald Dahl’s The Twits. These books were ‘real’ fiction – they were proper chapters stories with black and white illustrations instead of colour pictures. And I could read them. I was reading!

I haven’t looked back since…

These first ‘real’ fiction books were for me, like all young readers, incredibly important. They kept me on my reading path – for with each completed chapter I was one step closer to finishing the book! That’s why we here at Ladybird want to create fun chapter books that are perfect for newly independent readers. We want to make stories that capture children’s imaginations and motivate them to read chapter after chapter, so that they, too, can continue their own reading journey. For as Walt Disney so aptly put it: “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.”

And we think our new fiction series, Genie Street, is a treasure trove waiting to be discovered. There are six chapter books in the series and each contains two laugh-out-loud stories. The books are the next step up from Ladybird’s Read it yourself Level 4, so the text is fairly large and the vocabulary is simple to ensure each chapter is manageable. Plus there are plenty of humorous illustrations to add to the story, too.

So come and join Tom and Daisy on Genie Street – where every door leads to a magical adventure! It all begins with one very ordinary lamp post, which turns out to be rather extraordinary. When the lamp is rubbed in a special way; once up, once down, then three times round and round, the children enter the magical world of Lampland!

We hope children will love reading these ‘real’, grown up books as much as we have enjoyed making them. If you’d like to read more about the books and meet the characters, visit the Genie Street website.

We’d love to know what was the first book you remember reading by yourself? Join the conversation here by leaving a comment, over on Facebook or on Twitter @Ladybirdbooks, using the hashtag #myfirstread.

Nursery Rhymes are here to stay

Ladybird Editor Nicola looks at the role of traditional nursery rhymes in our modern, digital world and considers the benefits of using them with your children. 

How many nursery rhymes do you know? Can you sing all of Incy Wincy Spider while doing the actions or know that the wipers on the bus go swish-swish-swish? Perhaps you struggle with remembering any traditional rhymes at all? If so, you’re not alone - surveys in recent years have shown that traditional nursery rhymes are in decline, with four out of ten younger parents (30 years and under) unable to recall a single nursery rhyme in full. But does this really matter? In the age of iPads and apps, streamed music, satellite television and the other fast-paced accompaniments to modern life are these old nursery rhymes still relevant to parents and children today?

We think yes. Here at Ladybird, we’re passionate about nursery rhymes in all shapes and sizes. Not only are they a fascinating part of our social history and heritage, having often survived mostly unchanged for hundreds of years, but they are just brilliant for encouraging the essential listening, speaking and memory skills every child needs for learning. Plus they’re fun too! I have strong memories from my childhood of bellowing ‘YES, sir, YES, sir, THREE BAGS FULL!’ every time I saw a black sheep (and in Devon there were quite a few…) and playing Round and Round the Garden, Like a Teddy Bear with my dad, with the delicious, slightly scary anticipation of getting a tickle at the end.

Ladybird First Favourite Nursery Rhymes

Read any nursery rhyme aloud and listen to the repetition, rhythm and rhyming sounds that occur throughout. Knowing that the ends of lines are going to rhyme and that lines have the same number of beats in them helps you to read it smoothly. Even more so if there’s a catchy tune attached to it too! Hearing rhymes like this helps babies and children to understand the pattern and rhythm of our language. They need this understanding when learning to speak, as well as for reading and writing further down the line. Nursery rhymes in particular also expose children to interesting and challenging words that add to the richness of their vocabulary – think meadow, haystack, mulberry, parlour and candlestick.

                 

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star                                  Five Little Ducks

Number rhymes such as Five Little Ducks and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe encourage early counting and numeracy skills, while action rhymes like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and I’m a Little Teapot are great for improving coordination and encouraging physical play and expression. Plus of course, it’s lots of fun to act out rhymes and a lovely way to play with your toddler.

One of the most valuable things about nursery rhymes is that they become part of a wider shared experience for young children – they’re not only able to sing along with you, but there’s that magical moment when they realise that other people also know these rhymes too! This sense of being part of a group and being able to join in is an important step in growing up and interacting with others, either at nursery or school.

Lift the Flap Nursery Rhymes

I’ll just leave you with a quote from the famous collectors of nursery rhymes, Peter and Iona Opie, that I think sums up just how special nursery rhymes can be:

“Wherever the English word is spoken, the children become joyful and wise listening to the same traditional verses.”

And who wouldn’t want to be joyful and wise?

Do let us know which nursery rhymes you and your children most love singing and sharing. Are they old favourites you remember from your own childhood, or new ones you’ve picked up along the way? We'd love to read your comments.

You've seen the TV programme, now read the book!

If your child loves a certain TV or film character, it will probably mean that books featuring these characters are the first ones they reach for. With this in mind, we sat down with Rebecca, Editor for Media and Entertainment at Ladybird to have a chat about the appeal and impact of well loved TV characters featuring in children's publishing.

Many children love books based on their favourite  characters - Ladybird Peppa Pig books are bestsellers. Why do you think this  is?
I think Peppa’s success is partly down to the fact that there’s as much to enjoy about the series for grown-ups as there is for children. Grown-ups hold the purse strings, so appealing to them is key. There’s also a universal truth to the dynamics of the Pig family and their experiences that huge numbers of people, young and old, identify with. Oh, and they’re really, really funny and colourful  too!

        

How do you think books featuring popular tv/film  characters can encourage children to read?
I think books like these can provide a springboard. Young children respond well to familiarity and repetition, so starting out with books based on familiar characters helps to build their confidence, encouraging them to then broaden their horizons. They can be a great way in for reluctant readers too.

Do you  think character books can replace classic books (eg fairy tales) or should  they sit together on a bookshelf to give children a rounded experience of  reading?
I think both have their place and that they should sit together, although I do think it’s very subjective; building a rounded experience of reading is as much about  discovering personal ‘classics’ as the more traditional ones. Children’s  reading should be about enjoyment not enforcing a reading list on them, which can really take the magic out of it.

Do you think a  child has to be a fan of the TV character in order to enjoy the books? 
That’s an interesting question. No, I’m sure it doesn’t always necessarily follow, although I do think that it probably helps for the child to be familiar with the TV programme (or indeed film/computer game). Perhaps that’s truer of the  younger readers than the older ones though, who are a bit more confident about deviating from what they know.

                      

How do (publishing)  editors go about choosing which TV characters would crossover to books? 
In character publishing, this decision probably lies less with the editor than the publisher/director. However, essentially the criteria applied are similar to those in traditional fiction publishing: the central characters need to be appealing and strong, likewise the stories, and there needs to be a unique selling point (USP). The difference is that a character book’s success is dependent on its associated brand’s popularity. Sometimes this is a safer litmus test than you often have in fiction, unless you’re talking big-hitting, established authors. However, in character books you have to move fast and strike while the zeitgeist is hot. There aren’t many evergreens – Peppa Pig, the Mr Men, Thomas the Tank Engine and Hello Kitty being the notable exceptions that spring to mind.

Are there any new children's TV characters  that Ladybird is planning on publishing soon?

Our first titles for Raa Raa the Noisy Lion publish this month and are already causing quite a stir.  Raa Raa is the exciting new pre-school series from the creators of Fifi, Roary the Racing Car and Bob the Builder and we are launching with some really cute board storybooks, a Little Library and a sticker activity book.

                

 

WIN WIN WIN!

Ladybird have recently published two new Peppa Pig books and we've got three copies of ' Peppa's First Sleepover' to give away to our blog readers.  We'd love to know what your child/grandchild's favourite TV character is - whether they appear in a book or not - so just leave  a comment below and we'll put all the names into a hat and pull out three winners.

T&Cs apply. Leave your comment by midnight 12th March 2012. Winners will be selected at random and notified by 15th March 2012.

Build your reading library with Ladybird

As a fan of Ladybird, it’s very likely that you already love books and are keen to pass the reading bug onto your children or grandchildren. We know from research that developing a love of books at a young age helps to create life-long readers. It is never too early to start reading with your child - even if as a baby or toddler, they do grab the book off you for a little chew at the end of the story!

At Ladybird, we are passionate about helping parents, grandparents and carers share the joy of reading with their children. So we are excited to have teamed up with the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror on their new reading campaign, and from 4^th February you will be able to collect tokens to receive FREE Ladybird books.

There are 100 books to choose from including early learning books, traditional stories, bedtime stories, books for first experiences, favourite characters such as Peter Rabbit, Spot and Zingzillas, plus books for those starting school and learning to read.  Start collecting tokens printed in the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror from Saturday February 4 until Sunday February 26, 2012. Plus don't miss the eight-page special pull-out that lists all 100 books in the library to choose from.

  

We really hope you enjoy the books. Do let us know which ones you choose.

Whatever your child's age or whatever stage they are at, Ladybird is here to help.  You can look in our bookshop where you’ll find a great selection of books suitable for babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers and older children.  We also have advice & resource pages  giving parents tips on reading with their baby, ideas for sharing books with toddlers , tips on Starting School or advice on helping your child become an independent reader. 

PS. If you are new to the Ladybird Blog, please do take a look around. You can search the ‘Categories’  list on the right hand side, to find a topic of interest or a post based on the stage your child is at. To get you started, you could read this lovely post discussing the beauty of fairy tales by one of the Ladybird Editors. 

Health, happiness and heaps of great books!

Happy New Year to you all!  We're back to work at Ladybird and despite the January rain and health kicks (life really is dull without chocolate biscuits), we are keeping our spirits up with the thought of the new Ladybird books coming out in the next couple of months.  Here are just a few which we thought we'd share with you. If you'd like to see the full list, just visit our bookshop.

This month, there's the beautifully illustrated bedtime book Happy Babies: Bedtime Baby - a delightful book for parents and babies to look at together, showing one little baby at each stage of bedtime: having his nappy changed, looking at a bedtime story and snuggling down with teddy at the end of the day.


In February you can meet Raa Raa the Noisy Lion, who loves going on noisy adventures with his little jungle friends! Ladybird are publishing a set of books based on the amazing new animated pre-school show, which encourages youngsters to play with the sounds around them to develop their communication skills.


Also in February there's a great new Toddler Touch book First Words,  perfect for young children who are starting to explore the world around them. With interesting finger trails on every page, flaps to lift, and plenty of things to touch and feel.


WIN a copy of each of these three books. If you'd like to receive a free copy of each of these books to share with your children,  just leave us a comment letting us know what you're looking forward to in 2012 and we'll put your name in a hat and pull out three winners*

The Ladybird Team

* All those who leave a comment will be entered into the prize draw and the first three names selected will be the winners. Each winner will receive one copy of each of the books pictured above within two weeks of their publication date. Leave your comment by midnight 23rd January 2012. Winners will be selected and notified by 27th January.

Top picks for Christmas from the Ladybird Team

This is such a lovely time of year for us - we've been working hard to produce great books for children and now we get the chance to pass them on to our loved ones too!

With that in mind, we've asked some of our team what will they be choosing from the Ladybird bookshelf to give this Christmas and here are their top picks...

 



 

You can see all of the above books and many more in The Ladybird Bookshop. Plus there is free UK delivery until 31st January. Happy Shopping!

 

We all love Vintage Ladybird

Ladybird Creative Director, Ronnie Fairweather (the font of all knowledge of all things Ladybird!) has written this week's post on the past, present and future of Vintage Ladybird.

Welcome to the world of vintage Ladybird and our up to the minute offices here in the Strand where we are using our state of the art technology to bring you this blog.

 The Vintage Ladybird office in the Strand. From Postroom, Central Control Room – the nerve centre and Design and Editorial office the newest technology is used.

Over the last few years there's been a resurgence of interest in anything and everything "Vintage". Tapping into this trend we've launched a very successful Vintage Ladybird licensing program. On the publishing side of Ladybird, we've been watching this growth area too, and in response have compiled the fantastic Postcards from Ladybird Box. It published in October this year, alongside a facsimile edition of the iconic, Ladybird Book of London. Both of these titles will remind many people of their childhood and of times when life seemed simpler. The old Ladybird motto was "A book for every subject" and now there's a postcard for every occasion. 

Postcards from Ladybird- 100 reasons to send a message and the Ladybird Book of London, a must for the modern tourist.

Most of the images on the postcards come from the golden age of vintage Ladybird the 1960s and 70s when life appeared to more straightforward than today. Then, there was very little on the telly, two of the channels even shut down at 11pm. There were no computers or mobile phones, and a blackberry was for the crumble with custard (if only that were the same today I bet you’re thinking!)

 Remember these? (the one on the left is a REAL blackberry)

Parks were safe places where you went and played havoc with the landscaping and adding to your scab collection on your knees. In those days you were allowed to feel peril and danger, and test your skills at climbing and  jumping up and down on unsuitable objects.  If you came a cropper falling from the roundabout you didn't sue the local authority!

Mummy had a perm, she wore a pinnie and cooked the tea. Daddy wore a hat to work, smoked a pipe whist he read the paper and came home to a wholesome meal on the table at 6 o'clock sharp. 
 


Although the sun was nearly always shining in the land depicted in these Ladybird images, in the real world other things were hitting the news. It was an extraordinary time, a time of incredible optimism, coupled with impending doom. Many things were going on.  

The cold war was getting chilly

Hippies letting it all hang out

Yuri Gagarin was first man in space

The Berlin Wall was built

Cuban missile crisis kicked off

JFK was assasinated

Vietnam war was at having a massive impact

England won the world cup

Martin Luther King was assassinated

And Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon


But that was then and Ladybird always made sure that the sun shone for their readers! Ladybird was a beacon of Midlands post war optimism if ever there was one.

The Vintage Ladybird journey that we find ourselves on today, began about 10 years ago when a couple of us were summoned to a warehouse on the outskirts of Heathrow Airport. We had been told to 'get rid of' about 900 grey boxes that had been stored in a dark, dusty corner since the closure of the Ladybird offices in Loughborough. You can only imagine our surprise when we discovered that these boxes contained the original artwork for most of the Ladybird books published since the 1940s.

The Harmondsworth warehouse, before and after

It soon became clear to us that this was something really special. Very few collections have the quantity or quality of this visual material, so literally minutes before the bulldozers moved in to demolish the warehouse ,we managed to save the whole lot. We transported the collection to the University of Reading Literary Archive. They had tonnes of enthusiasm for the collection, but at the time very little space, and it spent a number of years in the gymnasium there!  

Over the next year we opened every box, photographed and catalogued the contents and created an image database containing 12,000, keyworded images, now used by our licensees and publishing team. We have also collected a near complete set of first edition Ladybird books, the original library set having been accidently pulped when they arrived at Harmondsworth from the Ladybird offices - tragic!

Today, the Ladybird image bank is used by the in house team to create products like the Postcard Box Set and the beautiful facsimiles editions of classic titles. We also license our images to be reproduced on stunning gift products. If you wanted to you could drink your hot Bovril at the footie from a Vintage Ladybird flask or you could store your fondant fancies in a gorgeous Vintage Ladybird cake tin.

 

The future is incredibly exciting for Vintage Ladybird, with a brand new step into the world of digital. The wonder and beauty of these nostalgic books can now be enjoyed on the iPad  and iPhone with the fantastic Ladybird Classic Me Books app. This unique picture book reader has introduced a whole new generation of children to these childhood favourites, and we’ve received an overwhelming response from Ladybird fans, both young and old, about how much they are enjoying it.

The app brings fourteen classic Ladybird books to life, with wonderful (and often hilarious) narration by well known personalities including Adam Buxton (from BBC 6 Music’s Adam and Joe show) and comedian Josie Lawrence. Children can scroll through the pages and tap on ‘hot spots’ to trigger sound effects, or enjoy recording their own sounds.

The excitement continues to grow as Ladybird Classic Me Books app has also just received a Gold award in The Lovie Awards, and there are five further titles being released in December, including Cinderella and Tootles the Taxi!

Fans of the Ladybird illustrations also have a special opportunity to get up close to the artwork at the Ladybird Big Book of Motor Cars exhibition at the Heritage Motor Centre, in Warwickshire. On show until 15^th January 2012, the exhibition includes 120 Ladybird books and 30 original artwork illustrations alongside a selection of amazing vintage motor cars.

 As you can imagine, we have the odd "off the wall" request too for our Ladybird images. We recently found ourselves opposite Vivienne Westwood, on the front row of London Fashion Week, watching some amazing silk-patched Ladybird t-shirts sashay, pout and strut their stuff on the catwalk. Ladybird meets Haute Couture! Who knows what will come next!


Fashion Week according to Ladybird,1972 and Child of the Jago 2011

Life is never dull at Team Vintage Ladybird HQ. We’d love to hear from you about your favourite Ladybird memories, so please feel free to leave a comment below.

All images courtesy from the Archives of Ladybird Books Ltd

© Ladybird Books Ltd MMXI

Happy Birthday The Ladybird Blog

It’s been a good year for the Ladybird team and one of the things we’re particularly proud of is our blog. We’ve involved editors, writers, digital experts, educators, marketeers and a few special guests and - even if we say so ourselves - we’ve produced some fine reading material!

Watching the blog grow and having such a wide variety of posts to share has been very rewarding. It’s been really good to hear your feedback - so thank you for following our blog, thank you for your comments, your Facebook ‘likes’ and your reviews. We’re really chuffed and delighted that so many of you have enjoyed what has been written. But, we’re not resting on our laurels, we’re 12 months in and have lots more to say! 

Books, reading, babies, children, school and digital learning are very important to us and the amount of discussion these topics generate is amazing. We’d like to hear from you if there is an aspect of any of these topics you’d like to see covered – do let us know and we’ll certainly look into it.

As a little birthday treat from us to you, we’re giving away three copies of this lovely  Ladybird First Favourite Fairy Tales book to our blog readers. Just leave a comment below, either letting us know which post has been your favourite or what you’d like to read about in a future post. We’ll then pop all the names into a hat and three winners will be picked*.  We look forward to hearing your ideas - good luck!

And lastly, in case you’ve only just began to follow us, here are some of our top picks from the past year
1.   ' Look how many chapters I've read! Starting to Read 'proper' books' - Ladybird editor Ellen
2.    Getting boys into books - Ladybird Educational Consultant Geraldine Taylor
3.    The wonderful world of the Land of Me - guest post by the innovative James Huggins

*Leave your comment by 27th October 2011. Winners will be picked and notified by 31st October 2011.   Terms and Conditions apply