I may keep harping on about it, but some of my favourite old Ladybird books are those which feature some of the hobbies of yesteryear. The things which have now been superseded by games consoles and iphones. This week's book covers one such hobby – 'How to do it' Woodwork.
The 'How to do it' series (series number 731) only lasted for two books (Woodwork and Metalwork) before it was subsumed in the Learnabout series (series 634). When the book was republished in the new series the cover was changed to fit in with the Learnabout style of a single picture in a circle, but the contents remained the same.
One of the aims of the 'How to do it series' was to be there to teach new people the hobby, regardless of whether they were old or young. The style is therefore not specifically a children's book, but you might imagine some grownups skipping the sections on the history of wood.
This book goes into quite a lot of background detail before it gets on to the practical side of woodworking. I can see exactly why things like understanding how a tree grows and the importance of seasoning wood are very useful to people who really want to fully understand the subject, but an enthusiastic child may well have got rather frustrated.
Various woodworking tools are also covered in detail, everything from different saw types and planes through to chisels and drills. There are even illustrations about how to correctly use sandpaper.
Woodwork provides a huge amount of information about woodwork and the tools and techniques, but the thing that really seems to be lacking from this book is any kind of a project for the reader to get stuck into. This surprises me somewhat as many of the other Ladybird hobby books I've read do have this, especially thinking of the sewing and knitting ones. So, whilst it's a good book to read or use as reference I am left thinking that there might be a bit of a gap in the Ladybird series for any budding woodworkers.
I find the detail in these books amazing to say they were meant for children. I have linked to your blog again for Ladybird Tuesday!
Thanks for joining in again Anne!
I LOVE this one, wish I had this one.
Thanks for this. I always like Ladybird books since my childhood days, they have colourful hand made pictures. I did not buy Ladybird books which illustrated with photographs in later years.