Ladybird Books facts for kids
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| Parent company | Penguin Random House |
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| Founded | 1867 Loughborough, Leicestershire, England |
| Founder | Henry Wills |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | London |
| Publication types | Books |
| Fiction genres | Children |
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Ladybird Books is a famous London-based publishing company. It is known for making many children's books. Ladybird is part of the Penguin Group of companies.
It is an imprint of Penguin Random House. This larger company is owned by Bertelsmann, a big German media group.
Contents
The Story of Ladybird Books
Ladybird Books started a long time ago, in 1867. A man named Henry Wills opened a bookshop in Loughborough, England. After about ten years, he began printing and publishing his own guidebooks. In 1904, William Hepworth joined him, and the company was called Wills & Hepworth.
How the Ladybird Name Began
By 1914, Wills & Hepworth published their first books for children. They used the name "Ladybird" for these books. From the very start, a ladybird logo was their symbol. At first, the ladybird had open wings. But in the late 1950s, it changed to the closed-wing ladybird we know today. The logo has been updated several times since then.
In 1971, the company officially changed its name to Ladybird Books. This was because everyone knew their books by the Ladybird name.
Helping Kids Learn to Read
In the 1960s and 1970s, Ladybird had a very popular series. It was called the Key Words Reading Scheme. This series helped many British children learn to read. It used a smaller number of words to make reading easier.
There were 36 small, hardback books in this series. They showed typical British family life. Characters like Peter and Jane played together. Mum was often a housewife, and Dad was the breadwinner. Famous artists like Harry Wingfield drew many pictures for these books.
Ladybird also made "Learnabout" books in the 1960s. These were non-fiction books full of facts. Both children and adults used them to learn new things.
Changes in Ownership
Ladybird Books was an independent company for many years. In 1972, it became part of the Pearson Group. Later, in 1998, Ladybird joined Penguin Books. This meant Ladybird was now with other well-known children's book publishers. These included Puffin Books and Dorling Kindersley.
The Ladybird offices and printing factory in Loughborough closed in 1998. Many of the company's old artworks were given to public collections.
Books for Everyone
In 2014, Ladybird joined the Let Books Be Books campaign. They promised to stop labeling books as "for girls" or "for boys." They started removing these labels from new copies of their books. Their parent company, Penguin Random House, also agreed to do this.
Ladybird Books has had other imprints too. These include Balloon, Paperbird, Sunbird, and Disney.
In 2015, Ladybird announced something new. They would publish their first books for adults! These books made fun of the classic Ladybird style. They had titles like Mindfulness and Dating. They were written by TV comedy writers Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris.
Following this success, the Ladybird Expert series started in 2017. These books are not parodies. Instead, they use the classic Ladybird style to explain subjects clearly. They cover topics like science and history. The first book was Climate Change, written by the Prince of Wales. Other books covered Quantum Mechanics and Evolution.
The Classic Ladybird Book Design
The classic Ladybird book was small. It measured about 11.5 cm by 18 cm. Early books had 56 pages. This was a clever design choice. A whole book could be printed on one large sheet of paper. This meant no paper was wasted.
This way of printing made the books very cheap to produce. For almost 30 years, a Ladybird book cost only two shillings and sixpence (about 12.5p today).
The first book in this classic style was Bunnikin's Picnic Party. It came out in 1940. It was a story in verse with colorful pictures of animal characters. It was an instant hit! Later, Ladybird published nature books and many non-fiction books. These covered hobbies, history, and travel.
In 1980, Ladybird started making books in other sizes. Most of the classic small books were stopped in 1999. This happened when their printing factory in Loughborough closed.
Ladybird's Impact on Culture
In 2014, an artist named Miriam Elia created a book called We go to the gallery. It was a funny take on modern art, made to look like a Ladybird book. Penguin Group at first said it broke copyright rules. But after some changes, it was published as a parody.
In 2015, Penguin then released their own series of funny Ladybird books for adults. These were written by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris.
See also
In Spanish: Ladybird Books para niños
