Tales from the Haunted Toy Box: A New Year for the Mid-Lifer by tony k

I don't know about you, but I loved Ladybird Books as a kid.  Most of us read or collected them. I still have a handful of my dog-eared originals, and I sometimes splash out if I spot them at the car boot. 

They were a story telling landmark in our early social development. They educated and orientated us with positive role models who would inspire us to set our standards high. 



 Beautifully illustrated, each pocket size hardback was populated with bygone heroes of derring-do, packed with tales of heroism, adventure, discovery, and invention. They portrayed an idealised, very-British, stiff upper lip, representation of the world.  

Ladybird shaped our childhood expectations for the adventures which lay ahead. But somewhere along the way everything changed.  Innocence was lost, and we grew older... middle-aged in fact.   

Like outgrown childhood friends, we lost contact with those enlightening little gems of wisdom that captivated us as kids.  Or so I thought, until I stumbled across one on eBay called, The Mid-Life Crisis. 

I immediately high-fived the Buy-it-Now option in a desperate bid to learn more about the fate of so many of my peers and contemporaries.  

The caring mother of childhood literature, Ladybird, is once again reaching out with guidance and wisdom. 

She's an old friend reuniting with her former class of aging, accelerated culture kids, who, like a bunch of forgotten supermarket bananas, are facing the cruel realisation that they are often considered past their social sell by date. 

Ladybird is like an omnipotent teacher watching over her wayward wards. She's had her finger on the pulse though.  

Now she's come back to share the enlightenment of her observations, with her outta-step, outta-place, Baby Boomers and early Gen X-ers. 

The 'Mid-Life Crisis' stays true to the style, format, and charm, of the traditional Ladybird hardback.  Although the tone of the text has grown more sardonic with age... as I guess, we have... it's still funny though... I think?

Please don't worry if any of the cynical depictions have a ring of unsettling truth, or prompt hesitant self-denial... we can still laugh about it all, old pal... so long as we remember that we can no longer crush and crunch those Gobstoppers like we used to... just in case our brittle middle-age teeth crack and crumble, and cause another mid-life crisis!


Tony K