Thursday 5 May 2011

Ladybird Books drop the ball with no new Royal Wedding book

The recent Royal Wedding captured my daughter's imagination (and Mrs Peej and Charlotte dutifully watched quite a lot of the coverage on TV while grumpy daddy hid away upstairs) so it was a bit disappointing to find out that Ladybird Books would not be publishing an official Royal Wedding book for Will and Kate's big day. Oddly though, Ladybird produces a book on the engagement and run up to the event and a rather odd looking dolly dress up book, but doesn't seem to have anything planned for the day itself. 


My wife, and quite a few others of her generation grew up as avid royal watchers and also avid collectors of those cool pocket-sized Ladybird books that commemorated royal occasions and events with photographs and descriptions laid out and produced in a child-friendly way. Ladybird books set the standard for other publishers to follow and to be fair, those old books may seem a little antiquated and old fashioned compared to modern books and publishing standards. Nevertheless it seems like a massive missed opportunity for the publisher to produce another collectable that my daughter could pass on to her children in the same way we've shared our Ladybird books with her. 


As a side note, Ladybird states that it wants to carry on the tradition of producing affordable full colour pocket-sized books for children (and amazingly it was quite cool to find that they do still print and reprint classics like the Peter and Jane books!). So c'mon Ladybird, let's see you do Will and Kate Proud!