Jennifer's Little World blog - Parenting, craft and travel: Ladybird book

Showing posts with label Ladybird book. Show all posts

Tuesday, 27 January 2015

Ladybird Tuesday - Learning to Sew

The Ladybird Book Learning to Sew was published in 1972 and is from my favourite Series 633 - Hobbies. The book contains a variety of sewing projects that a child can complete, beginning with a simple table mat and progressing on to little gifts like pin cushions and comb cases, as well as practical skills like sewing on a button and turning a hem.

I remember making simple table mats like this at school, in fact I think I still have a couple somewhere. The book has all sorts of different stitch designs, with examples of ways to use them in projects.

I'm not that good at sewing and I found the instructions for the projects quite vague in places without the step by step guides that I'm used to seeing on crafty blogs. I think that the book probably assumes that there will be a handy mother or grandmother on hand to help. While most of the projects in the book are quite traditional, I really like the last two. They are collage pictures made using all sorts of bits and pieces, for example nuts or washers from father's tool box!

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Ladybird Tuesday - Easy to Make Puppets

This week for Ladybird Tuesday I have another book from Series 633 - Hobbies. Easy-to-make Puppets was published in 1973 and features instructions for a variety of different puppets, as well as ideas for scenery, props and even a simple puppet booth.

The book begins with a basic elephant puppet made from a thin sheet of card through which you post your finger to make the elephant's trunk. The book then carries on with ideas for a huge range of different puppets, made from household items including plastic bottles, handkerchiefs, apples and yoghurt pots. The designs are all simple, and yet some are really clever!

The puppets increase in complexity as you progress through the book, finishing with papier mache moulded heads and handsewn glove puppets. You could put on a really professional style puppet show with some of these.

The puppets in the book tend to focus on characters that featured in children's games and stories at the time, like Red Indians and robbers. Nowadays as well as traditional fairytales children would probably enjoy making puppets for their favourite Disney films and television characters. I know that my children love printing out pictures of their favourite characters and sticking them to lollipop sticks to make very simple puppets, and now I'm inspired to try something a bit more complicated!

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Ladybird Tuesday - More Things to Make - For Special Occasions

For this week's Ladybird Tuesday I'm looking at another of the crafty Ladybird books that my Mum bought me for my birthday. More Things to Make is from Series 633 - Hobbies. It is a sequel to the original Things to Make book, and the Hobbies series has to be my favourite Ladybird series. More Things to Make was published in 1973.

In total, the book features 24 different projects, with the majority themed around special occasions. There are a selection of cards and gifts for Mother's Day, some Easter crafts and some Christmas projects. The crafts use materials that are easily found around the home, for example toilet roll tubes, felt and pipe cleaners. A quick flick through resembles my Pinterest home page, with timeless children's crafting staples like tissue paper flowers and a pom pom cat.

Most of the crafts are quite simple and could easily be completed by a child on their own. Some of them require a little more ability, for example hemming the edge of fabric, but the pictures are clear enough that even young children could use them as inspiration for their own ideas. I'm going to leave it around near Harry for him to browse through and see if he asks to make something from it, and if he does I will share it!

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

Ladybird Tuesday - A Ladybird book about Knitting

It has been a little while since I joined in with Ladybird Tuesday, but it's a New Year and I'm back! I'm going to be starting in January with some wonderful books that my Mum bought me for my birthday last year. She found them at the Fibre East show, and they are all lovely crafty ones that I had been hoping to add to my collection. I'm beginning with A Ladybird Book about Knitting.

The copy that I have is actually a modern reproduction, which is a great idea from Ladybird. The original was published in 1972, and this facsimile edition was published in 2012. It has a dust jacket, and I believe that it's identical inside to the original.

I do love knitting, but I'm not very good at it. While I can knit away happily in garter stitch for ages, if I drop a stitch I basically have to start again, as I've no idea how to fix it. I also just can't get my head around a pattern. So my level is basically scarves. Although the knitting instructions in this book are clear with plenty of pictures, I'm not sure that I could have worked it out from the book. However I suspect that the author of the book imagined any young child that was learning to knit would have a willing mother or grandmother around to teach them (as well as a ready supply of odd balls of wool in different colours).

The book really does begin at the very beginning, but even with just the basics there are instructions for the first project, a simple hair band. It would be great motivation to be able to knit something useful almost immediately.

Each new knitting technique is followed by a little project using what you have just learned, including things for yourself and little gift ideas for the rest of the family. They all sound so simple and are so pretty! I do love the little doll's blanket, even I could probably manage this!

Tuesday, 25 November 2014

Ladybird Tuesday - The Story of Nuclear Power

It's a rather complicated book this week. The Story of Nuclear Power is from Ladybird Series 601, all books which discuss the achievements of man. Other titles in the series include The Story of Plastics which looks very interesting (currently the cover is on display in my Ladybird wall display, I'd love to read the actual book!), The Story of Furniture and The Story of Ships. The Story of Nuclear Power was published in 1972.

Ladybird Book - The Story of Nuclear Power

The book begins with a discussion on the need for nuclear power for us to have heating, lighting, cooking, radio, television and so on. Then it goes back to the very beginning when man used forces for power that exist in the outer regions of the atom. Then in the twentieth century, scientists began to wonder if there was anything smaller than the atom, and discovered the much greater forces that can be released from within the centre of the atom, which is what we mean by nuclear power. I'm not a very scientific person, and those couple of paragraphs in this Ladybird book explained the concept to me much more clearly than any science lesson at school!

The book continues with a detailed look at early experiments, and how scientists from across the world came together to unravel the secrets of the atom and were able to control the release of the atomic energy. The world became aware of this new power with the dropping of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

The book takes a look at the future of nuclear power, for example in the Space Age. It suggests that the first planned use of nuclear engines will be to propel space ships shuttling between Moon and Earth orbits, although that hasn't happened quite yet!

The book is overwhelmingly positive in it's description of nuclear power. Atomic bombs are mentioned in passing with no hint of the huge loss of life and devastation that they cause. Perhaps this is because the book was written before nuclear power plant disasters like Chernobyl in 1986. I think that a book written today would be much more balanced about both advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power.

Although it is briefly mentioned that the used fuel elements are hot and radioactive, this is glossed over, giving the impression that they are somehow 'processed', with no mention of safety. Instead the book finishes with several pages of all the wonderful things that nuclear power will be able to do in the future, like powering cargo and passenger submarines across oceans and developing undersea food farms.

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Ladybird Tuesday - Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is a book in Series 740 - Legends. My very first Ladybird Tuesday book was also in this series - A First Book of Aesop's Fables. It's not a large series, and it only contains 7 books.

Ladybird book Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is one in a collection of stories called The Thousand and One Nights, based on ancient Persian, Arabian and Indian tales. They are linked by the story of Sheherazade, who managed to avert her execution by telling one of the stories to her sister each night in the presence of the Sultan, who couldn't bear to miss the end of a story and so kept delaying her execution until in the end she was forgiven.

The story has been re-written in simple text for younger readers. It follows Ali Baba, who never had much money to support his wife and son until he spots some thieves hiding their gold in a cave and learns the magic words ("Open Sesame") to open the cave and help himself. There follows a series of twists and turns as he and his family manage to foil the robbers.

Although most of the book follows the usual Ladybird style with text on the left and illustration on the right, some of the pages have both text and picture, and alternate pages have an illustration which is just red, black and white which jars a bit with the lovely colourful illustrations elsewhere. It's an exciting story though, and it's been well written to cater to young readers.

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Ladybird Tuesday - Great Civilisations - Crete

I've had Great Civilisations - Crete on my bookshelf for a little while now. My husband brought it back after a visit home once, at the time little did I realise it was just a hint of the wonders to be found in his Ladybird book collection.

The Ladybird book Great Civilisations - Crete is a part of series 561 - Adventures from History. There are a lot of books in this series, mainly focusing on historical figures but also featuring several other great civilisations including Greece and Rome. There are 50 books in the series in total and it is the biggest series that Ladybird produced between 1940 and 1981. I also have some of the older books in the series that still have their original dust covers. Great Civilisations - Crete was published in 1976.

There is a lot of detail in this little book. It begins with an introduction to the island of Crete, and how we can know about the people that lived in ancient Crete from two different sources - the old legends and the archaeological findings. The book begins with a look at some of the most famous Greek legends about Crete, including the well known stories of King Minos and the Minotaur, and Icarus who flew too close to the sun with his wax wings.

The Greeks remembered these stories and handed them down over the years as true events. They were passed down in the form of stories and songs. But even though a hundred years ago no-one believed these old stories, modern archaeologists have found evidence for some of the places referenced in the stories such as Troy. The book then turns to looking at actual archaeological finds which enable a more accurate history of ancient Crete and the people who lived there to be written, even though there is still plenty that we don't know.

I found this book a really fascinating read, once again Ladybird manage to produce a non-fiction book that reads beautifully and really brings history to life.

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

Ladybird Tuesday - Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel is part of the Ladybird Well-Loved Tales series 606D. The series is graded in order of reading difficulty, and Hansel and Gretel is a Grade 2. It's one of the more modern editions of the book, with text on both sides of the page instead of the traditional Ladybird text on the left, picture on the right format. My copy has also had a bit of a bite taken out of it!

Ladybird Well Loved Tales - Hansel and Gretel

The illustrations in the book are also quite different to the traditional Ladybird pictures. They are very stylised and simplified, not at all the realistic drawings that are usually found in these books. I must admit that I don't really like this style of the book.

It is a good series though, and like all the books in the series the story of Hansel and Gretel is told in a way that makes it easy for newer readers. It still has the original gruesome ending where the witch is pushed into the oven, with the addition that afterwards Hansel and Gretel steal all her jewels before returning to their father!

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

Ladybird Tuesday - Lives of the Great Composers Book 2

A while back I looked at the Ladybird book Lives of the Great Composers - Book 1, and my OCD tendencies were satisfied when I discovered Book 2 in the big box of Ram's childhood Ladybird books. Both books are in Series 662 - History of the Arts. Book 1 covers Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, and Book 2 covers Handel, Haydn and Schubert. Both books were published in 1969. Another book in the series is The Story of Music, which I have also written about.

Ladybird book Lives of the Great Composers Book 2

Because the book only covers three composers, it's a pretty comprehensive text and there is a lot of detail. The biographies are written like stories, beginning when they were young children, which makes them a bit more approachable. They are not just a dry history, but are filled with little anecdotes, many of which are beautifully illustrated and sometimes quite humorously. For example, a paragraph about Haydn's short marriage to his rather volatile wife is illustrated by a picture of him cowering against a door clutching a violin while she throws crockery at him, definitely making the story more memorable although I'm not sure that they'd use an illustration like that today!

I really like the style of the book, although wordy it's actually very entertaining and definitely brings the stories of these men to life.

The book finishes with a quick summary of the well-known pieces by the composers in the book. I'm definitely going to be keeping these books around as a reference for school projects in the future!

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