Quality control and care over the accuracy of information were all important for this leading children’s series
The editorial files in the Penguin Archive reveal Noel Carrington (and sometime Allen Lane, or his brother Richard) frequently stepping in to insist on the need for expert advice from the Natural History Museum or a university. Experts would check the proposed lists of content to make sure nothing was missing or that it was a balanced list. They would read the text and comment on the detail of this. Sometimes expertise was sought to check an illustration was precise enough. There are multiple examples in the letters of long-running discussions about the specifics of a dinosaur or a tractor image; something that did not always go down too well with the illustrator.
Katharine Reeve 