Ladybird reading schemes

Whilst looking through some recent book donations, I found some old press cuttings from Teachers World magazine. The advert on the back of one press cuttings- for a reading scheme- was a real snapshot of children’s publishing in the 1960’s; it reads

‘The attractive and colourful LADYBIRD KEY WORDS READING SCHEME (sic) has proved an outstanding success in the teaching of reading, writing and spelling.’

I thought the advert was a real insight into children’s lives in the 60’s; reading schemes were very gender specific and many publications for children relied heavily on the strictly demarcated gender roles. Recently, Ladybird announced that they would no longer be selling books ‘for boys’ or ‘for girls’ so do have a look at our Ladybird holdings (type ‘Ladybird books’ into the library catalogue) for a real blast from the past!