I don’t normally feature Ladybird books from the same series back to back here on Ladybird Tuesday, but I’ve got an excuse this week. I’m desperate to share with you something that I found whilst taking a week off to finally go and visit my mum for the first time in what feels like forever.
We headed out with my daughter and nephew to the National Trust’s Clumber Park and whilst there I was delighted to see that their secondhand bookshop was open again. I was even more delighted to find this one one of the shelves in the children’s section – a box set of books from the Talkabout series.
Now I have to admit that I don’t know a huge amount about the box set, or even when it was published. The box itself is very much lacking on details. There is a list on one side of the books it contains – more on that in a moment – but there is no date anywhere, and not even a copyright notice of any kind.
According to the box it should contain the following books from the Talkabout series: animals, home, the beach, shopping, the park, gardens, starting school and bedtime. The version I have is missing animal sand starting school, and instead contains baby and holidays. Also, home has a glossy cover, yet all the other titles have matt covers.
I have no idea is it’s just a case of different books being put in the box before it made its way to the secondhand shop, or if maybe different titles were in there from the start. Slightly weirdly, all the books in the box are individually priced and looking at the back covers I don’t think they were all published at the same time. Another sign that I don’t have the original books in my box? Or a sign that these boxes were thrown together quickly, possibly to get stock moving before a new version of the walkabout books was released? I’m yet to find a definitive answer, but will keep digging to try and get one.
In the meantime I’m just going to sit here and appreciate the gorgeous artwork on the box itself. What looks like an incredibly detailed collage. Very similar to what featured on the covers of the individual talkabout books, but with more texture.
About Ladybird Tuesday
Ladybird Tuesday is a regular feature here on Penny Reads, where I delve into my Ladybird book collection and choose a title to share with my readers. The weekly series originally started on my old blog, Being Mrs C, and this post originally appeared on there. I’m now in the process of moving all those posts over to Penny Reads and also adding titles that I have acquired since then. A list is currently being compiled here of all the titles I have in my collection.
Leave a Reply