How it Works: The Grandparent: (Ladybird For Grown-Ups) (Ladybirds for Grown-Ups)

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Although these are adult books, there’s no explicit mention of sex. This caption was presumably inspired by his awkward pose in the original illustration:

Wives need wine and chocolate to cope with husbands and children. Well, I don’t like chocolate, and I prefer gin to wine, but wine will do. And friends (yes!) and shopping (not so much). A small random road test would seem to bear out his optimism. Polly, an artist and former primary teacher, had given Hazeley and Morris’s How It Works: The Wife to her daughter for Christmas, while her partner received The Ladybird Book of the Meeting from a friend. She recalls using Ladybird books in her London classroom. “We were still buying On Volcanos in the 1990s: it was about finding books for kids who wanted to learn – often boys – which could act as a stepping stone to other books.” It is the husband's job to organise this surprise for her, and to keep her informed of every detail about it. Another reason for their success and enduring popularity is the distinctive font and style of illustration. In this coffee-table book you don't have to, with never before seen covers, excerpts and paraphernalia from the archives, colourfully presented and helpfully divided into the following chapters:And when Donald is told it is time to stop being the President, who knows what exciting things will happen next?'

Next year, she will claim that becoming a mother was the best day of her life, but only because she was on some very strong drugs. However, modern children are unlikely to find them appealing, so Penguin Books commissioned humorous new titles for adults, but using artwork from the original children’s books. Titles include: The Shed, The Hipster, Mindfulness, The Meeting, and The Zombie Apocalypse. See list here.

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Elia created her own retro pictures, but Hazeley and Morris had the entire Ladybird archive to riffle through. The once cutting-edge illustrations had become a gift for pastiche. In The Ladybird Book of the Meeting – which has sold 165,000 copies – five middle-aged white men sit in earnest discussion around a table. The caption reads: “These important people are discussing work-place diversity.” The fun of the series lies in the relationship of mid-20th-century iconography aimed at children to 21st-century comedy for adults. THE PERFECT GIFT for anyone who spends Christmas Day counting the minutes until the Boxing Day sales start. From the people who gave you classics such as The Ladybird Book of The Hangover and The Ladybird Book of The Mid-Life Crisis, they bring you this collection of what could have been. Imagine a world where there aren't just the thirty-two Ladybird Books for Grown-Ups you've seen in your local bookshop or downstairs toilet but hundreds and hundreds more . . .