I have been amassing Ladybird books since the early 1970's. The range of illustrators was an attractive proposition (Robert Ayton, Frank Hampson, Charles Tunnicliffe, John Berry and Harry Wingfield for example). The house style, fiercely held to over the years, was admirable. You could be sure that the wholesome tone of the books was sustained in a dogged way, but in the process, some images of startling originality emerged.

I am not interested in the educational principles that underly the series.That you can work that out for yourself. What interests me are the delineations of a private and characteristic world where several human attributes are mysteriously reconfigured. I must explain that this is not a return to a childhood, nor is it a thirst for knowledge in pictorial form.

In CHARACTERISTIC IMAGES , images are viewed without their text pages.

In the three galleries the full double page spreads are shown.