Series: Ladybirds for Grown-Ups
First Published: 20th October, 2016
Genre: Humour / Fictional Non-Fiction
Available: Amazon UK
The old Ladybird books covered a wide range of subjects for children. They were small books with hard covers, with the general layout of a page of text opposite a full page picture. People grew up with these books, which led to the adult realisation that there were some unintentionally funny things about them. Ladybird decided to get in on the action, by producing their own satirical versions for adults. This one tells grown-ups all about the zombie apocalypse.
My reference book for this review was Life of the Honey-bee, one of the genuine old Ladybird books for children. Funnily enough, one of the bee pictures is included in The Zombie Apocalypse. The pictures all look like they’re from the original books, but with new text to put them into an apocalyptic context.
The text is in the classic cheerful tone of the books. Some pages are more general, but many focus on a character and what they say or do. The language is simple, with a few short paragraphs on each page. Ladybird books did vary in how they were written (my bee book is a little more wordy and doesn’t focus on characters), but this is a reasonable reproduction of how the books were put together.
I liked the book’s opening statement that there are still interesting things to do after the zombie apocalypse. Also, that the police may be very busy. There’s a polite optimism about the end of times, as well as educational discussions about the nature of zombies. My favourite potential zombie cause was: “It could even be a fungal infection like athlete’s foot, but one that explodes mushrooms through your face and makes you eat everybody.”
There are some other nice touches when it comes to making this look like one of the old books. There were little series within the series, which were given a number. The bee book is part of Series 651, which had four books. This information was listed on the back. The zombie book has copied this, putting itself in Series 999 with five other pretend titles. Though if they really published The Martian Invasion or Giant Underground Worms, I’d be there.
Inclusion in the art is the same as the old Ladybird books. That means it’s mostly nice middle class white families. Everyone is dressed very neatly and they’re usually smiling (or looking horrified in an over-the-top way, which was not originally because the images were intended to be people thinking about zombies). There’s usually a father, mother, one son and one daughter. Boys often have dark hair and the girls are blonde. There is one black family and also some construction workers on one page, because that was as far as diversity went in the Ladybird era. Everyone else fits into a stereotype of the perfect British family, in the sort of way where you might wonder when someone was about to get murdered in the village. Ladybird books and cozy mysteries are really the only place this family exists.
It’s also notable that the few pictures rebranded as zombies, where there are people who are either shot or attackers, have darker skin. One shows tipi frames in the background and another looks like the zombies are wearing buckskin clothing. I’d assume they were originally intended as scenes of Native Americans, which is pretty messed up considering their skin is darkened in a way that looks distinctly unnatural. They’re not brown, but more of a greyish-black. They really do look more like zombies.
As someone who grew up reading these books, I appreciated the humour. I also think there’s something here to appeal to those who’ve never read a Ladybird book, as the satire works as a general poke at the way children’s books (and the apocalypse) are presented. However, it does make me reflect on how Ladybird books were very much products of their time in a bad way. The perfect stereotype family contrasted with everyone else was a common theme of the books. The racism in the imagery went largely without comment when I was younger. This is something that works as satire for adults, but it’s something I hope we leave behind for children.