Penguin to publish Ladybird books for grown-ups

“It’s like being allowed to mess about with a national treasure”, Morris told The Independent.

Well now imagine what those books would be like if they were made for adults and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the new Ladybird series has in store. There will be eight in all, including titles such as The Ladybird Book of The Hipster and The Ladybird Book of The Hangover.

Hazeley and Morris said they chose to use original illustrations of previous Ladybird books and to “write as if we were time travellers from the 1960s looking at stuff such as online dating and nightclubs”.

Artist and comedian Miriam Elia was threatened with legal action when she published her parody Ladybird book called We Go to the Gallery, where Peter and Jane learn about conceptual art.

Guides to Dating, The Hipster, The Husband, The Wife, Mindfulness, The Hangover, The Mid-life Crisis, and The Shed will all be available from Ladybird on tNov. 19.

The pair are in their 40s but have strong memories of the original books from the 1960s. “It’s too close to the bone”.

Going through Penguin’s vast archive of Ladybird artwork they realised that pictures depicting first dates and binge drinking were hard to come by: in the classic books, “mum is at home with the kids and dad is at work fixing a Lancaster bomber”, said Morris.

Ladybird Books celebrates its 100 birthday this year, and it looks like it’s rediscovered its sense of humour. Their cosy depictions of women in aprons and men in work boots disappeared in the 1970s and are often seen now as sexist and racist.

The Ladybird book of The Mid-life Crisis by Joel Morris and Jason Hazeley. “It’s like repainting Saint Paul’s”, Morris says. “Luckily, that’s become part of the joke”, he said.

Penguin RandomHouse will next month publish a series of Ladybird books for grown-ups with titles such as The Ladybird Book of the Mid-Life Crisis and The Ladybird Book of The Hipster.