'How it Works' - The Rocket, Ladybird Book

'How it Works' - The Rocket, Ladybird Book

This first edition hardback ‘How it Works’ - The Rocket, Ladybird Book, was published in 1967. Part of a series of books produced to help explain to children how complex things like rockets worked. Other titles in the series included 'How it Works' - The Motor Car and 'How it Work' - The Aeroplane.

Books like this one were incredibly popular in the 1960s, as space travel and the battle between America and the Soviet Union to dominate space played out. With the goal of landing on the Moon in sight, children all over the world were fascinated by the rockets and spacecraft that launched humans into space. Books from this period have become collectible items, with many collectors' interest in space first sparked by the Moon landing of Apollo 11 in 1969.

Ladybird Books were published by Wills & Hepworth Ltd in Loughborough. This particular book was written by David Carey, with assistance from Leonard Carter, the Executive Secretary of the British Interplanetary Society at the time. Illustrations were done by Bernard Robinson.