Ladybird Book of The Weather 🌍

The Ladybird Book of The Weather was published in 1962, and the cover dustwrapper shows a picture of a Suffolk style post mill with a steps mounted fantail. The illustration, one of many delightful ones in the book painted by Robert Ayton appears inside on the pages about cumulus clouds, which are shown in the sky above the mill. Under the wrap, the actual boards cover of the early editions of this book shows a different image - that of a weathervane. Later editions got rid of the separate dustwrapper, just having the illustration directly on the board front cover. As such, they lose just a little of the right edge of the painting, which had flowed over the fold of the wrapper.

I've seen 3 different version of the cover - the dustwrapper one, a variant with a ladybird appearing in the top right corner, and then one where the book is subtly restyled as "A Ladybird Book, The Weather".

What makes this news worthy is that I've just spotted that in 2023 "Climate Change, A Ladybird Book" was published, with a cover illustrated with wind turbines. This book has a foreword by the then Prince Charles, now King Charles.