Growing Up with Dick and Jane: Learning and Living the American Dream

by Carole Kismaric

They're back!

Growing Up with Dick and Jane reunites us with two old friends, Dick and Jane, who, for forty years, taught so many of us to read. Here's the all American brother and sister team. Look! It's Dick, in his striped polo shirts and shorts, always ready for an adventure. Look! Look! It's Jane, in her pretty dresses, eager to have fun and learn about life. There's silly, mischievous Baby Sally, and Spot, America's favorite spaniel. Growing Up with Dick and Jane brings to life the cast of characters who are emblems of the American Dream. And side by side with the story of Dick and Jane is an entertaining and informative text that tracks important historical, social and educational events of the "Dick and Jane era."

Here's your chance to step back into the innocent watercolor world of Dick and Jane, where night never comes, knees never scrape, parents never yell and the fun never stops. Remember holding a Dick and Jane primer for the first time and the thrill you felt when you knew you could read? Growing Up with Dick and Jane traces the Dick and Jane phenomenon from their birth during the Depression to their retirement in the stormy 1960s. It explores the influence these little books had on education and the evolving American Dream. Packaged with a sampler of original Dick and Jane stories and cutout dolls of Dick and Jane, Growing Up with Dick and Jane stirs memories of home, school and what it was like to grow up when childhood felt like one long summer day.

Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman produce innovative visual books and museum exhibitions. Lookout, their company, has created: Talking Pictures (Chronicle), a book and popular multimedia exhibition; Loyalty and Betrayal: The Story of the American Mob (CollinsSanFrancisco); the bestselling Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood (Hyperion) with William Wegman; and the cult classics Mr. Salesman (Twin Palms) with Diane Keaton and I'm So Happy (Vintage).

Bob Keeshan, known to generations as Captain Kangaroo, is one of the most beloved performers and influential innovators of children's television. The first Clarabell on The Howdy Doody Show, Keeshan went on to create Captain Kangaroo, the longest-running network children's series. An advocate of children's causes, Keeshan's unique blend of education and entertainment has influenced his followers, on screen and off.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Education, Childrens, Literature, Humor

111 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Lori Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because it was referenced in Bill Bryson's "Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" (a HIGHLY recommended book).

I was born in 1969 but for some reason love pretty much anything to do with the 1950's, so this book was a fun read. It's short, but has some good tidbits about the history of the times and what it was like to learn to read and grow up in that era.

I also enjoyed reading about the social reasons behind why the Dick and Jane readers eventually fell out of the school systems.

Recommended!


Lori Anderson

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[Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, thin book.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I started elementary school in 1963 and can remember reading the Dick and Jane books. Although I seem to recall that our school had older versions of the books, and I thought they were old fashion. Growing up with Dick and Jane explains the why behind the Dick and Jane books, which I found extremely informative. I thought it is well written and does an excellent job at describing life in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I do recommend this book.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

My mother gave this to me. I believe the thinking was that as a school teacher I would have an interest in this.

I finally got around to reading this a decade later. It is an interesting read. Dick and Jane was a Scott-Forsman reading program that developed in the 1930s and continued until 1965, although they continued printing until 1970. The series was based on whole word recognition and not phonics. This was a bit confusing as it seemed as though there was a phonics component to the program to help students sound out the words.

While this was not the program I was taught in school, we had Dick and Jane books on the shelves at home.

This book presented the history of the series with a lot of what was going on in the US during the different decades. I found some mistakes, albeit minor ones. For instance in the discussion of the 1960s,

Teenagers never knew what they were going to see or hear: Laugh-In or another assassination, Love Story or Easy Rider . . .

The problem here is that Love Story was not published in the 1960s. ;)

Nevertheless, for someone interested in the series and how it mirrored American society during its four-decade run, this is an interesting read.

[Emerald Dodge · Rating 2 out of 5]

The key problem with this book is that it doesn't know quite what kind of book it is. It's far too short to be a critical examination of the Dick and Jane books, America in the 1950s, or the American Dream, but I think that's what it was aiming for. Far, far too many pages are given to the biographical background of characters from the book, making me think they were trying to introduce the series to a new generation.

Either way, it was a messy, lopsided read.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In 1953 , one billion comic books were sold at a cost of four times the book budgets of all of the public libraries in the U.S." No wonder librarians were crabby back then.

All in all, this is an excellent history of how kids learned to read in the 1950s with Dick and Jane. And with the comic books.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you need a flashback to your elementary school years and the reasons for sociological trends in our nation's history. Pictures of the air raid drills in the school hallways. It helps understand the whole basal reading series phenonmenon and the Wonder Bread years.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mentioned in "Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid." Nice for nostalgia's sake, but not much else.

[Priscilla Herrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many Americans of my age, my earliest school reading experiences involved Dick and Jane and Baby Sally. This book is, on one level, a lovely nostalgia piece for us to remember those carefree days of childhood, where Dad went somewhere to work, Mom stayed home and cleaned house, the grandparents still lived on the farm, and we children played all day, having little adventures that always ended well.

But as Dick and Jane over the years is examined, we see the powerful propaganda that presented an American dream, and how changes were made to accommodate changing times - and yet, there was always a sense of Dick and Jane's world being some other place. Not real. And mostly white. And mostly middle class. And mostly innocent in a claustrophobic sort of way.

It would be interesting to compare Dick and Jane with current basic reading books used in classrooms today. In an effort not to offend the majority, how many children are left out of these narratives? And if the task is top impart primary reading skills, how much social commentary and conflict will advance this goal, and how much will unnecessarily complicate the task of reading at its inception?

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Less satisfying than I remembered it.
This is 1)A look at the Dick and Jane series, the kind of stories it tells, why it was used to teach literacy and how it changed (slightly) through the years. 2)A look at the world of childhood and more broadly America from the 1930s through the 1960s and how it varied from the fantasy of the books.
Ultimately it doesn't tell me anything I didn't know about history (not the book's fault — I read a lot of history) and as someone else's review said, spends too much time talking about the cast in the books: Dick, Jane, their kid sister, their dog, etc. They ain't that interesting.

[Connie D · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child who already knew how to read when introduced to the Dick and Jane books, I found them hilariously silly.

I actually have more respect for them now.

Reading this book was like reliving my childhood.

It's a great overview of the 1950s and 1960s, told through the frame of the Dick and Jane reading books. I l also loved the photos, the discussion of the positives and negatives of the postwar dream, and the explanation of the creative process behind the books.

[Robyn Lowrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful look into the past! I learned to read with primer series "See Spot. See Spot run."
Kismaric takes the reader on a journey from the first conception of the whole word approach, post WWII with the Boomers including historical and cultural context. As the political narrative of the United States changed in the 60's and 70's, so did Dick and Jane: clothes, schoolmates, roles of Women leaving the "housewife" duties to working out in the world!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun trip down memory lane. I remember reading (& hating) Dick & Jane in K-1st Grades. But reading the history, knowing that my school's reading materials were old & dated, and comparing Dick & Jane to changes in American society was very interesting.

[Jennifer Strong · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. This book gave historical context to the Dick and Jane books interspersed with analytical essays. I found the whole thing fascinating and well worth the read. I didn’t grow up with Dick and Jane, but my grandma did and she still has fond memories of their stories.

[Adrienne Organa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely well written book and an amazing look back on the 30s-60s.

[M Jarman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting read on culture, reading theory and societal evolution.

[Brandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. Interesting way to talk about the past century America through the Reading books of Dick and Jane. Lots of history and the times as they changed each decade.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting book, but probably not because of what the authors intended. This discussion of the classic reading primers is more of a celebratory hagiography than a critical examination. Because of that, many of the reading series' problems are unintentionally replicated in this book. While about 5 pages are devoted to the ways in which this white, middle-class, hetereonormative reader didn't necessarily reflect all Americans' experience, the rest of the book relies on and reinforces reductive ideas of the "American Dream" that (probably) led to Dick and Jane's demise. It will be useful to me as I discuss reading and African American citizenship in the 1950s and 1960s.

[Deborah W · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really fun to read, and it brought back so many memories! I'm one that did grow up with Dick and jane, and I lived during the most perfect time in our country to be a kid. Idyllic, for sure, it was such a happy childhood. No wonder I think it's a shame that mothers don't stay home with kids anymore, that dads don't spend their weekends taking the family on outings. You may say it's not fulfilling enough for women? But I say kids only have a few years of childhood, make it the best childhood ever! My parents did.

[Andrew Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kismaric writes to a general audience in a fun and engaging way. She uses Dick and Jane to study issues of race, gender, consumerism, and cultural history in the 1940s and 1950s. As an educator, I was particularly drawn to the way in which Dick and Jane functioned as a way to make learning fun. I have increasingly discovered the importance of entertaining my students, not making light of the content, but rather drawing students into the content through humor, excitement, and relevance.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This actually explains a lot. It is kind of about not the evolution of America, but the evolution of the child and societys' expectations and how they have changed over the decades. I like how the series tries its' hand at racial tollerance but introducing African-American nieghbors. I read this series when I was in kindergarten, and I thought it was too easy.

[Mel]

Love the historical perspective and how Dick and Jane contributed. I wasn't alive when the system was in use but I grew up with references to it constantly. Sort of glad it wasn't used when I was growing up though because the repetitious language is really annoying. Love the pictures though.

[Karen Engel · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those of us who learned to read with Dick and Jane books, it was a marvelous trip down memory lane. I do remember being in first grade and having my first primer. Parents were invited to sit with us and we were able to read aloud.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interdisciplinary look at the educational phenomenon that was "Fun with Dick and Jane." Difficult to read as a linear text, but it is fun to just jump around the book and read the sidebars and articles.

My copy also came with paper dolls of Dick and Jane. Win.

[Chris Antonsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nifty and zippy history of two fictional, idealized characters used to enculturate generations of Americans into hold a narrow and specific set of expectations for adulthood, civic consciousness, personal identity, and success. (Hint: It was damaging, though this book doesn't say so.)

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting history about the readers.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhhh, the memories of reading circle with our own copies of the blue book!

[J.L. Martin]

Fascinating look at Dick and Jane via the history of the time in relation to the art/story.