Fun with Dick and Jane by William S. Gray

We were focused on learning to read rather than the social implications of the books. It didn’t matter that many of us – both black and white children – knew no one like them. The story of Dick and Jane – white, suburban, from a well-groomed and middle class family – was designed to teach us the simplicity and joy of life in two, three and four letter words. Titled “Our Big Book,” the binder at auction contained the first six stories of “We Look and See,” described as the “beginning pre-primer of the New Basic Readers.” The paper binder had an easel in the back for propping on a table so all children in the classroom could see the tall lettering, even those hiding in the back.Įvery American child of a certain age learned to read from these Dick and Jane books. Those were dull looking outside but offered more classical and complex tales inside. Interestingly, these early readers were a total departure from the 19 th-century primers I normally come across at auction. Oh, Look.” Dick does his chores, while Sally fools around.Ī copy of a bound oversized version of these books was laid out on an auction table recently, along with another that told the story of a similar family whom I was unfamiliar with. My mother had taught me to read before I started school, so I’m sure I whizzed through the simply written stories. Rainey’s class (she was one of the sweetest persons, but aren’t all first-grade teachers?). They were the characters in my first-grade readers in Mrs. When I was a child they were like our fictitious rich cousins, always enjoying their good life, with me and millions of other children wandering vicariously among them. When I saw the pictures of the children in the book, it took me back decades.

Fun with Dick and Jane by William S. Gray