‘That bit makes me cry, ‘ Joel Morris, who co-authored the new books with his writing partner, Jason Hazeley, said to The Independent.
Advertisement
The books will be available to buy from 19 November 2015, priced at £6.99 each.
The books are due out next month to mark the centenary of the children’s imprint.
‘When we’re young we wonder if we’ll be a surgeon or an astronaut. We can be anything we want to be.
The titles include The Shed, The Wife, The Husband, The Hangover, Mindfulness, Dating and The Hipster.
One of the writers, Jason Hazeley, tweeted an excerpt from one of the books titled “The Hipster”.
The authors chose to pair new text with original illustrations from the children’s books. “It’s too close to the bone”.
Embracing the trend for spoof Ladybird editions that juxtapose the twee and genteel imagery with captions rewritten for comic effect, the companysaid its “kidult” range is meant to “enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope”.
“He added that being able to use the images in this way was like being allowed to mess about with a national treasure, it’s like repainting Saint Paul’s”.
Morris says in the original books “mum is at home with the kids and dad is at work fixing a Lancaster bomber”. 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 most stressful thing that used to happen in Ladybird books when we were younger was Pat the dog losing his sh*t when Peter and Jane gave him his yearly bath. “Luckily, that’s become part of the joke”.
Advertisement
And while the revival in interest in Ladybird has spawned a number of unauthorised parodies for adults on the internet, this is the first time official Ladybird books for adults will be published.
