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Ladybird Books for Grown-Ups
The Ladybird Book of the Zombie Apocalypse
This delightful book is the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them.
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. Featuring original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text.
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. Featuring original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text.
52 pages, Hardcover
First published October 20, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
October 30, 2021
Short review for a very short book.
The first line is "When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth." Obviously borrowed from Dawn of the Dead.
Anyway, it's a fun and amusing little book, which is completely tongue-in-cheek and I enjoyed it while it lasted.
Definitely not for children as there's a couple of gory illustrations.
It's not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but it's a fun, little read.
The first line is "When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth." Obviously borrowed from Dawn of the Dead.
Anyway, it's a fun and amusing little book, which is completely tongue-in-cheek and I enjoyed it while it lasted.
Definitely not for children as there's a couple of gory illustrations.
It's not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but it's a fun, little read.
December 13, 2020
Thoroughly amusing....! I did not know what these were. My husband was putting away some of his books and handed that to me and said his sister got it for him one year as a stocking stuffer. I looked at it and obviously had to read it!
Now i will keep a look out for these. I love the originals that i have seen.
Now i will keep a look out for these. I love the originals that i have seen.
January 10, 2017
Joke Xmas prezzie from my husband. :)
Fun and cynical little book for adults made like kid's 'how to' book with pictures on every page and a huge script.
Fun and cynical little book for adults made like kid's 'how to' book with pictures on every page and a huge script.
November 28, 2016
Loads of fun and great accompanying illustrations.
April 28, 2024
This is a very charming, funny, and short British book for adults in the style of a children's manual. The illustrations all carefully match the simple text and are in the style of educational books for young readers. "People in zombie films have not watched enough zombie films." "The end of the world is full of surprises." Loved it!
March 16, 2018
Smirksome.....
November 12, 2016
A very British Apocolypse!
Funny to read and if you had a lot of the books as a kid the challenge is which original book did the art appear in?
I recognise a few but not all.
My favourite line is 'people in zombie films have not watched enough zombie films.'
Funny to read and if you had a lot of the books as a kid the challenge is which original book did the art appear in?
I recognise a few but not all.
My favourite line is 'people in zombie films have not watched enough zombie films.'
November 8, 2016
3.5 stars, original ladybird illustrations and humorous text about a zombie apocalypse. Some pages are funny, some struggle. Worth a five minute read if your library has it.
June 12, 2022
Got this for Christmas one year and just found it whilst sorting bookshelf. Adult humour and quite funny tbf.
March 10, 2017
The writing in this adult picture book is a sardonic rip at our culture's obsession with zombies through the lens of reappropriated artwork from (my guess is) the 1950-60's. It has the feel of a collection of New Yorker comics focusing on the theme of the Apocalypse:
"Sebastian is manning the Ventnor comms station on the Isle of Wight. An island is a safe place to be because it is easily quarantined, but supplies from the mainland can be irregular. If the islanders find out Sebastian is hoarding the last roll of toilet paper, they will break in and kill him."
I expected a few laughs from the absurd juxtapositions, but was surprised to find an analogizing of our current paranoia over zombies with our history of casting indigenous peoples as primitive savages.
Social commentary on deeply ingrained racial biases gives this book more of a reason for being besides a few cheap jokes about how oblivious people of the 1950's seem to us today.
"Sebastian is manning the Ventnor comms station on the Isle of Wight. An island is a safe place to be because it is easily quarantined, but supplies from the mainland can be irregular. If the islanders find out Sebastian is hoarding the last roll of toilet paper, they will break in and kill him."
I expected a few laughs from the absurd juxtapositions, but was surprised to find an analogizing of our current paranoia over zombies with our history of casting indigenous peoples as primitive savages.
Social commentary on deeply ingrained racial biases gives this book more of a reason for being besides a few cheap jokes about how oblivious people of the 1950's seem to us today.
January 7, 2018
Another gift request for my birthday was the Ladybird book : Zombie Apocalypse. I had high hopes for this one. Its a private joke with my hubby due to my sick sense of humour in films and video games that if there ever was a zombie apocalypse then I'm your girl. I would be that last survivor! So this book felt like a great addition to my collection.
I felt that it fell a bit short though. Much of this book wasn't funny and had me eye rolling a lot. I liked the pictures but thinking back on it (I only read it a few hours ago) I can't remember any of the funny pages at all.
I'm sure some will love this one, I think I'd built my hopes up for it and was hoping it would be as good as my favourite The Cat book, but this one was just a 3 star for me. 10 minute read, great for presents and stocking fillers.
I felt that it fell a bit short though. Much of this book wasn't funny and had me eye rolling a lot. I liked the pictures but thinking back on it (I only read it a few hours ago) I can't remember any of the funny pages at all.
I'm sure some will love this one, I think I'd built my hopes up for it and was hoping it would be as good as my favourite The Cat book, but this one was just a 3 star for me. 10 minute read, great for presents and stocking fillers.
June 2, 2017
Cute tongue-in-cheek Ladybird Book 'for adults' that re-uses illustrations from a number of original Ladybird Books that were aimed at children and recasts them in a book that explains the... um... zombie apocalypse and highlights various individuals' responses to it.
An example page of text (in large, easy-to-read type, mimicking the original Ladybird style) faces an illustration of boys about to enter a secret passage in a wainscotted house:
Recommended for a brief chuckle!
An example page of text (in large, easy-to-read type, mimicking the original Ladybird style) faces an illustration of boys about to enter a secret passage in a wainscotted house:
Todd has spent his whole life worrying about what he would do in the event of zombie attack.
Terrorism, nuclear proliferation, environmental collapse and global inequality seem so unimportant now.
Todd is glad he did not waste any of his life worrying about them.
Recommended for a brief chuckle!
December 26, 2016
What a wonderful way to spend five minutes – reading this fantastic (literally), laugh-a-second, absolutely hilarious book. It is short, but almost painfully exquisite. A must for all zombie fans, but really it is excellent reading for anyone. And a great book for sharing, and reading aloud – but be aware, you may be completely incomprehensible as you attempt to articulate between fits of giggles. Best Christmas gift I received this year.
October 20, 2016
As with other adult versions of Ladybird books this is a satirical look at the clichés and some pop culture references to what a zombie apocalypse would be like. A quick read of course, with amusing illustrations. Probably suitable for teen upwards.
December 25, 2016
An eccentric and off the wall take on the much loved childrens ladybird book series. Seeing these pictures reprinted left me wondering what books they were ever in in the first place.
A great piece of silliness at Christmas.
A great piece of silliness at Christmas.
October 24, 2016
These are fun enjoyable reads.
Entertaining stock-fillers, though Id image most readers would have forgotten the jokes by January!
Entertaining stock-fillers, though Id image most readers would have forgotten the jokes by January!
Read
December 4, 2016Sadly not quite up to the series' usual standards, perhaps because the artwork from the original books was always a bit short on rotting corpses.
December 26, 2016
Amusing little book in the latest series for grownups.
January 2, 2017
Fun Christmas present I annoyed my family with by reading aloud haha
August 13, 2017
Just little fun read.
October 24, 2017
Hilarious! A good, fun read.
January 16, 2018
I don't think these adult ladybird books are as funny as they think they are but this one gets an extra star for featuring a lovely painting of Coventry. 😅
April 29, 2021
Having been brought up on Ladybird books, I love how they use original illustrations from the very old Ladybird books to fit in with the script. A wonderful parody of zombie films especially the comment about how people in zombie films have never watched zombie films as they nearly always do the wrong thing. Also liked the nod to Triffids. Great fun.
Read
February 1, 2026Not really sure why someone would spend their time and money making this?
October 5, 2019
Brilliant bit of stupidity, very good x
September 29, 2019
Think I’m fully prepared now, bring it on. Oh hang on, based on some of the descriptions I think we’re already in the midst of it
December 27, 2017
Time taken to read: Approximately 10-15 minutes
Rating: 4 stars
When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.
For those who do not know, Ladybird historically have produced fairy tale and educational books for young children. The typically format is chunky text on the left page and a coloured drawing on the right page. They are not particularly long, approximately 50 pages long (half of which are full page images). Recently they have been printing spoof books for adults, which provide witty one page anecdotes and stories on a variety of topics, my favourites being The Dad and The Mum (which I have bought respectively for both parents). The humour is very dry and accompanied by images that you would expect to find in a 1960's (or earlier) copy of a Ladybird children's story.
The Zombie Apocalypse is slightly different in that some of the pages follow on, marginally, however other than this, it contains the same stunning drawings and the same style of joke that I know and love at this point. These books are super quick to read and equally are fun to read aloud to whichever family member is unfortunately close enough to have to listen to you reading the whole book, but at least they are very short.
I have ordered myself a selection of these books in the Boxing Day sales and look forward to breezing through them all in 2018 to boost my reading target goals. It's hard to compare these books to other books, as they are not a novel and therefore I can't really offer comment on plot or character building. But what I can rate it on are how much the scenarios make me smile, laugh or relate. And a number of these did really make me chuckle.
Rating: 4 stars
When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.
For those who do not know, Ladybird historically have produced fairy tale and educational books for young children. The typically format is chunky text on the left page and a coloured drawing on the right page. They are not particularly long, approximately 50 pages long (half of which are full page images). Recently they have been printing spoof books for adults, which provide witty one page anecdotes and stories on a variety of topics, my favourites being The Dad and The Mum (which I have bought respectively for both parents). The humour is very dry and accompanied by images that you would expect to find in a 1960's (or earlier) copy of a Ladybird children's story.
The Zombie Apocalypse is slightly different in that some of the pages follow on, marginally, however other than this, it contains the same stunning drawings and the same style of joke that I know and love at this point. These books are super quick to read and equally are fun to read aloud to whichever family member is unfortunately close enough to have to listen to you reading the whole book, but at least they are very short.
I have ordered myself a selection of these books in the Boxing Day sales and look forward to breezing through them all in 2018 to boost my reading target goals. It's hard to compare these books to other books, as they are not a novel and therefore I can't really offer comment on plot or character building. But what I can rate it on are how much the scenarios make me smile, laugh or relate. And a number of these did really make me chuckle.
February 19, 2017
This is going to be a short review, which is fitting as the book is short. An amuse l'œil, if you like.
It pretty much does what you'd expect from the title: it's a pisstake of the Ladybird books, a series of books aimed at improving kids' reading abilities. Widely used in the '60s and '70s, these books covered all sorts of topics and were illustrated in a very painterly manner.
The Ladybird Book of the Zombie Apocalypse is part of a series - featuring entries on hangovers and hipsters - released in response to an art gallery spoof of the original books. (Which Penguin went after, natch.)
The new range features illustrations culled from original Ladybirds, paired with new text. The book reads pretty much as you'd expect it to, and it's pretty delightful - death is all around and approached with the same vocabulary-widening neutrality as a kids' Ladybird - except for a bit of a dodgy entry displaying what's presumably Native Americans as Zombies.
Still, it's a bit of a treat to see commercial illustration like this being brought back into the mainstream. It's a very specific style that's been lost over the decades, and its inclusion is, perhaps more than the tee-hee-zombies aspect of the work - the real reason to give this a read.
This review has probably taken you longer to read than the book will. Hopefully you can spare the time to give it a whirl, too.
It pretty much does what you'd expect from the title: it's a pisstake of the Ladybird books, a series of books aimed at improving kids' reading abilities. Widely used in the '60s and '70s, these books covered all sorts of topics and were illustrated in a very painterly manner.
The Ladybird Book of the Zombie Apocalypse is part of a series - featuring entries on hangovers and hipsters - released in response to an art gallery spoof of the original books. (Which Penguin went after, natch.)
The new range features illustrations culled from original Ladybirds, paired with new text. The book reads pretty much as you'd expect it to, and it's pretty delightful - death is all around and approached with the same vocabulary-widening neutrality as a kids' Ladybird - except for a bit of a dodgy entry displaying what's presumably Native Americans as Zombies.
Still, it's a bit of a treat to see commercial illustration like this being brought back into the mainstream. It's a very specific style that's been lost over the decades, and its inclusion is, perhaps more than the tee-hee-zombies aspect of the work - the real reason to give this a read.
This review has probably taken you longer to read than the book will. Hopefully you can spare the time to give it a whirl, too.
January 18, 2017
I received this as a gift and read it this morning during breakfast. This is an addition to the Ladybird Books for Adults series (Ladybird Books being short books published for children seemingly forever sometimes fiction and fairytales but more often non-fiction about a range of things).
The first thing to say is that the art direction is spot on. Like the books of childhood the text on the left hand side of the page is bold and clear, the full page art on the right hand side is amazing on every page. The style mirrors that of Ladybird books of old, lots of colour and everyone looks like they are from 1950. The writing style took me right back too with the simplistic sentence structure. My 6 year old is quite a good reader and he picked this off my shelf and dived in keenly - especially since the subject matter relates to a zombie apocalypse. There are corpses and blood letting on every page so it's perfect for a 6 year old! Of course I moved it to a higher shelf as it really isn't appropriate for kids ha ha...
The content takes all the old tropes of zombie fiction and presents it in a childlike manner. Is it funny? Well, not really. I did have a couple of smirks comparing the societal meltdown to 1970's Britain with a caustic dig at the industrial action of the decade.
Loved the artwork but doubt I will pick it up again. Charity shop for you zombies!
The first thing to say is that the art direction is spot on. Like the books of childhood the text on the left hand side of the page is bold and clear, the full page art on the right hand side is amazing on every page. The style mirrors that of Ladybird books of old, lots of colour and everyone looks like they are from 1950. The writing style took me right back too with the simplistic sentence structure. My 6 year old is quite a good reader and he picked this off my shelf and dived in keenly - especially since the subject matter relates to a zombie apocalypse. There are corpses and blood letting on every page so it's perfect for a 6 year old! Of course I moved it to a higher shelf as it really isn't appropriate for kids ha ha...
The content takes all the old tropes of zombie fiction and presents it in a childlike manner. Is it funny? Well, not really. I did have a couple of smirks comparing the societal meltdown to 1970's Britain with a caustic dig at the industrial action of the decade.
Loved the artwork but doubt I will pick it up again. Charity shop for you zombies!
September 7, 2018
A very quick read. Given that I grew up in the USA, I never had the Ladybird series as a small one, and much of the humor of this series is based on that nostalgia, so in that sense this really didn't work for me. However, another reason it didn't work is because the whole thing is incredibly disjointed. The book takes art from other books and repurposes it for use in an end-of-the-world scenario (which doesn't strictly stick to zombies, as references are made to the Triffids and Mad Max and giant animal apocalypse as well). However, it's obvious that the art comes from many different stories and the text doesn't go with the art. For example, some of the art obviously comes from stories that take place in modern times, some from stories that take place in older times. Often the connection between the art and the text is negligible at best (though maybe this was also a feature of the originals?). There is also not really any sense of a story, as each page tends to be completely disconnected from the last narratively speaking. Some of the comments are mildly amusing, but often I just found myself scratching my head and wondering what joke I was missing.
Still, I really appreciate my British neighbor for lending me this book at a time when I was really quite emotionally frazzled. So the book has meaning for me that way.
Still, I really appreciate my British neighbor for lending me this book at a time when I was really quite emotionally frazzled. So the book has meaning for me that way.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews