We can be anything we want to be. Then one day we can’t.
October 12, 2015 3:24 PM   Subscribe

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ladybird books, eight new titles are being produced. However these are targeted at adults, and may not be entirely serious in nature...

The Ladybird Book of the Hipster:
This is a hipster.
He is childless, unaccountably wealthy, and always well turned out.
He likes art, porridge, scarves, anything reclaimed from French factories, like this dog rack.


The Ladybird Book of the Mid-Life crisis:
When we’re young we wonder if we’ll be a surgeon or an astronaut.
We can be anything we want to be.
Then one day we can’t.


The eight books have been written by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris, who have also written for comedy show That Mitchell and Webb Look. The titles are:
- The Ladybird Book of the Mid-Life crisis.
- The Ladybird Book of Dating.
- The Ladybird Book of the Hipster.
- How it works: the Wife.
- The Ladybird Book of the Shed.
- The Ladybird Book of Mindfulness.
- The Ladybird Book of the Hangover.
- How it works: the Husband.

Telegraph: If, beneath the jokes, they can illuminate adult life for us as successfully as the covert delivery in 1970 of several hundred copies of The Computer: How It Works to the Ministry of Defence did the new technology for civil servants, then maybe we can forgive and welcome them into the fold.

The Independent: The cosy thing about Ladybird books in the Seventies was they showed a world without choice, without the clash of ambition and with pencil-thin horizons. Ladybird celebrated a world where mummy baked cakes all day and took the little ones on winter wonderland walks without needing Citalopram. And as for happy, contented daddy, he disappeared at breakfast time armed with his tool box, happy as Larry, to make enough money to support everyone.

Guardian: Going through Penguin’s vast archive of Ladybird artwork they realised that pictures depicting first dates and binge drinking were hard to come by: in the classic books, “mum is at home with the kids and dad is at work fixing a Lancaster bomber”, said Morris.
posted by Wordshore (8 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Incidentally, these are nothing to do with Miriam Elia (previously), who came up with bleak, sarcastic pastiches of the Ladybird Reader series last year — and was promptly C&D'd by Penguin. Miriam is not happy

Stay classy, Ladybird.
posted by scruss at 4:18 PM on October 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


We can be anything we want to be. Then one day we can’t.

Damn, that's... kind of dark.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:21 PM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Incidentally, these are nothing to do with Miriam Elia (previously), who came up with bleak, sarcastic pastiches of the Ladybird Reader series last year — and was promptly C&D'd by Penguin. Miriam is not happy …

Penguin were certainly dicks about that, and it looks extremely dubious that they have now released a similar concept.

But, in better news, Elia has re-illustrated and re-branded her book (the Dung Beetle Learning System!) and you can now buy it on her website. I'm buying a few to give out for Christmas.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:39 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you want an example of how journalism is PR-driven, then this is it. Even places like the Guardian, who just last year reported on the Penguin takedown of Elia's work, didn't mention this in their coverage of the hipster versions.

That, rather than Penguin being class-A shitewanks, got to me. Corporates gonna corporate, sure. But media should media.
posted by Devonian at 5:47 PM on October 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


See also the wonderful Scarfolk site's take on the idea.
posted by comealongpole at 5:54 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Even places like the Guardian, who just last year reported on the Penguin takedown of Elia's work, didn't mention this in their coverage of the hipster versions.

The Guardian did in fact mention that, and linked to their previous coverage. It's the last paragraph of the linked article:
Last year, Miriam Elia, an artist and comedian, was ordered by publisher Penguin to stop selling her satirical work in which Ladybird characters Peter and Jane were mashed with Tracey Emin-style conceptual art. She was told her art book breached Ladybird copyright. After publishing a brief run of 1,000 privately printed books – selling them for £20 each – Elia was told that if she continued to sell copies, the courts would be rule that the books be seized.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:54 PM on October 12, 2015


Reminds me a bit of the Fun with Dick & Jane books from the 50-60's.
posted by boilermonster at 8:23 PM on October 12, 2015


It sounds like Ladybird books have a place in reinforcing social norms in Britain they don't have in the U.S.? Ladybird books were my first introductions to classical music, opera, and ballet, and I have fond memories of that.

...Looking at Wikipedia, it sounds like these are satires of the Key Words Reading Scheme series (more analogous to Dick & Jane) and not the nonfiction volumes I grew up with. Aha.
posted by thetortoise at 9:13 PM on October 12, 2015


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