Quiz number 7
Of course, the lintel is missing from the stones in the later picture. But why? Why make the change? To make the picture look less like Stonehenge??
Sensible suggestions gratefully received.
Quiz number 6
NOT The Green Umbrella - but "Splishity Splashity Bunny"!
NOT a Ladybird book. It appears that in the 1970s, Ms A. MacGregor took some of her illustrations from the 401 series to an American publisher (Happytime Books) where they were rehashed with different prose stories. (This bunny is 'Bonnie' not Bluebell). I'm not sure how many stories were published like this: certainly Piggly, 5 Little Kittens and Bob Bushtail were reincarnated.
Well it was a bit tough. I didn't really expect anyone to get this.
Quiz number 5
Well Loved Tales - endpapers
The first time they revised the pictures for the Arabic market, removing all pigs, they missed the pig hiding behind the old woman's skirts in the bottom left-hand corner. This pig was spotted and 'outted' in 1983 - and summarily changed into a cat.
Well done, Fred, on being the first to spot this.
Quiz number 4
The Green Umbrella
The name of the bunny-heroine changed after the first edition(s) from Pinkie to Bluebell. I can't really see why. Robert Fearn, who was the first to send me the correct answer this month, suggests that 'Bluebell' sounded much more decent than 'Pinkie'...
There were a couple of other changes at this stage too. Originally 'Cousin Mary' had been called 'Cousin Emily' - which was a bizzare original choice by Perring as it was never going to scan!
Quiz number 3
The earlier copies of this book saw horns on the Viking helmet. Later editions did not - as presumably too many people wrote in to Ladybird to point out that the horn thing was a myth.
As for the Ginger's Adventures endpapers:
- the earliest versions reverse the pictures on both the back and front endpaper illustrations- whether by accident or design I can't imagine.
Quiz number 2
Tootles: The dog in the second picture is on a lead.
This is one of a great many changes that seem to have taken around 1970 when the Health and Safety Executive seem
to have got their hands on Tootles. Pavements suddenly appear under the children's feet, the little boy no longer rides on the
back of the tractor, the ice-cream van parks sensibly, etc etc.
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Quiz number 1
So there you have it. For some mysterious reason, when the 606d well loved tales books first changed format and introduced this style of endpapers, for the first few months there were three little pigs. But just a few months later, they turned into white rabbits and stayed that way. To see if you have any 'pig endpaper' books, assuming you have nothing more pressing to do with your life, check any matt books from this series priced at 30p, 40p or occasionally 50p.
Why did Ladybird go to this effort for so insignificant a change? Well Susan Cooke has offered a plausible explanation -
"I know that when Ladybird tried to extend their market into Arab countries they realised that all references to and pictures of pigs (an 'unclean' animal) had to be taken out of the books."
Have you any suggestions for a similar 'Spot the difference'? Let me know if so.
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