One book from my early childhood that I recall quite vividly was called Slower Than a Ladybug.
It had a blue and white cover with a drawing of a large leaf with a ladybug at one end of the leaf. The idea of the book was to find things that might move more slowly than a ladybug and to check in every few pages to find out the progress of that ladybug on that leaf as it slowly wended its way across it.
By the end of the book, which was printed in rather large type, as I recall, with only a sentence or two per page, so it was clearly aimed at first or second graders, the ladybug had made its way to the other end of the leaf, and if I’m not mistaken (I might be mistaken or misremembering here) started to fly away.
I don’t really remember any of the things that the book presented as possibly being slower than a ladybug; all I recall is the main premise, and the overall look of the book.
After mentioning it in yesterday’s post, which I wrote a few days ago, I set about trying to find a copy of that book, but the internet seemingly has never heard of it.
Hence, no picture.
Amazon doesn’t know about it, and the search engines have not heard of it.
Should anyone ever come across it, or at least a picture of the cover, I would be very grateful!
After writing the above, I made one more last gasp search and whaddaya know?
I found it!
Except—
It wasn’t called Slower Than a Ladybug.
The actual title was Fast Is Not a Ladybug: A Book About the Meaning of Fast and Slow.
My recollection of the cover picture isn’t too far off, and while the coloring of the pic I got from Amazon looks more greenish than bluish, I think that might have more to do with photographs not always reflecting real world colors, or perhaps an alternate version of the book. In my memory it’ll always be blue.
Amazon is charging $12.88 for a used copy of the book. And while I’m curious, I’m not really that curious. Just glad to see that that book still is around in some form.
Armed with the correct title, I was able to find it on many other sites for lower and higher prices. It looks like it was published in 1953, which sounds about right.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking Amazon links in my posts, I may earn a small commission. As of this date, I have yet to earn anything. 😎