http://crookedtimber.org/2004/09/27/ladybird-books/ Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:14:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://crookedtimber.org/2004/09/27/ladybird-books/comment-page-1/#comment-44409 marek Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:28:01 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2260#comment-44409 And not just history - the history shaded into biography, but beyond that, much of my basic understanding of how things work, from the internal combustion engine to weather systems, as well as grounding in skills such as map reading, came from Ladybirds. For my peak Ladybird reading years, the price was always 2/6. On decimalisation, they went correctly to 12½p - and I still remember the deep shock I felt not long afterwards when suddenly they were 15p. I felt personally betrayed by my suddenly reduced purchasing power - a first lesson in the wider consequences of inflation. And not just history – the history shaded into biography, but beyond that, much of my basic understanding of how things work, from the internal combustion engine to weather systems, as well as grounding in skills such as map reading, came from Ladybirds. For my peak Ladybird reading years, the price was always 2/6. On decimalisation, they went correctly to 12½p – and I still remember the deep shock I felt not long afterwards when suddenly they were 15p. I felt personally betrayed by my suddenly reduced purchasing power – a first lesson in the wider consequences of inflation.

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