Learning to Read in the 20th Century
The first Dick and Jane readers were published by Scott Foresman, a well-known textbook publisher, in the 1930s. Simple, repetitive sentences were used to introduce words to children a few at a time, and to aid memorization through repetition. The stories taught strong values of responsibility, sharing, and helping others, and used humor at times to drive home the lessons. The simple stories were accompanied by colorful illustrations, but the books presented an idealized suburban world that bore little resemblance to many children's experience, especially during Great Depression when they were first produced. As the Norton Anthology of Children's Literature (NACL) notes: "The world of Dick and Jane was the idealized image of white, middle-class America in the mid-twentieth century." (142) New titles were added to the series and older titles revised on several occasions, but it wasn't until the last edition, in 1965, that nonwhite children were first depicted in the readers. In the midst of the civil rights movement, black children were finally introduced to teach children racial tolerance.
In other ways, the Dick and Jane readers did reflect shifts in the social structure of American life. Unlike the 19th-century primers that often depicted rural children who had to deal with isolation and natural threats, Dick, Jane, and Sally lived in the suburbs with nearby schools and neighbors to play with. While the children of earlier instructional books faced temptations to behave badly, the children of the new readers seemed to be naturally good, without a need to fight temptation; moral lessons and behavioral rules were implicit in the narrative rather than being declared outright. Writing near the end of the readers' run, Richard L. Mandel said that the books "mirror broad trends in methods of inculcating American social character" (199).
The books were also criticized in their own time - Rudolph Flesch in Why Johnny Can't Read (1955) blamed their widespread use for Americans' relatively poor reading skills (Toppo). Certainly, in comparison to trade books for children, Dick and Jane seem bland and simplistic. In the NACL excerpt, a believable incident - the child setting the table with one place too few - is milked way beyond its sustainable narrative interest. It was in part as a response to readers like Dick and Jane that Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) created The Cat in the Hat in 1957.
In 2004, several of the Dick and Jane books were re-issued by Pearson, another textbook publisher, but only for nostalgia, not for classroom use (Toppo).
Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) has been called “probably the best-loved and certainly the best-selling children’s author of all time” (Contemp. Authors). Geisel graduated from Dartmouth College in 1925 and began graduate work in English at Oxford, but left without completing his degree to begin writing cartoons for humor magazines and to work in advertising. He first thought of writing for children in 1931 while illustrating adult humor books; among other reasons for the move was the fact that children's books were one of the few side activities allowed under his advertising contract (Bader 302). In 1936, he created some of the images and the initial rhymes for his first children's book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (publ. 1937) while crossing the Atlantic (Stofflet 29). The manuscript was rejected by 28 publishers before it was finally accepted, launching him on a career as a picture-book author and illustrator.
In 1957 he wrote The Cat in the Hat after reading an article calling for a more attractive alternative to the dull basal readers then available. His book married an extremely limited vocabulary (220 words) with a fantastic plot, and was immediately a sensation; its success led to sequels and caused Random House to begin a whole division, "Beginner Books," headed by Dr. Seuss (Stofflet 45). In this role, he published additional books which he wrote but did not illustrate and which appeared under a different pseudonym: "Theo. Le Sieg" ("Geisel" spelled backwards) (Gough 183).
Dr. Seuss’s ABC was published in 1963 as part of the Beginner Book series. The brief selections given in the NACL demonstrate the absurd nature of many of the Seuss books, which have been compared by Philip Nel to the works of the Dadaist movement. Typically, the humor in the book derives from the cartoonish creatures Seuss created and the playful approach to language:
Ordinary words are assembled into sentences that are syntactically correct but logically implausible: "Oscar's only ostrich oiled an orange owl today."
Sound effects are employed to provoke laughter, both in the naming of characters ("Nixie Knox") and in the creation of new nonsense words (the "Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz").
Lobel’s Frog and Toad have been called “two of the most beloved animal characters to appear in children’s books in recent years” (Contemp. Authors). He wrote a total of four books about the pair: Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970) and Frog and Toad Together (1972), excerpts from both of which are included in the NACL, Frog and Toad All Year (1976), and Days with Frog and Toad (1979). Lobel said that he was inspired to write the books by observing his children, but also realized that “Frog and Toad are really two aspects of myself.” (Contemp. Authors). Like many Dr. Seuss books, the Frog and Toad books were published in the “I Can Read” series, requiring an easy-reading, limited vocabulary.
As Seuss had done with The Cat in the Hat, Lobel worked with a severely restricted vocabulary but enlivened the simple stories he told with strong characterization of the two friends. Toad typically is the more childish of the two, as in "The Letter," which features a typical child’s desire to receive mail - a desire that is likely to be frustrated for anyone who has little business or distant friends. Frog, the more mature individual, honors his friend's wishes by writing him a letter, but sends it by snail - so that he arrives for a visit long before the letter gets to Toad.
SOURCES: Arakelian, Paul G., "Minnows into Whales: Integration Across Scales in the Early Styles of Dr. Seuss," Children's Literature Association Quarterly (CLAQ) 18, 1 (Spring 1993) 18-22; Bader, Barbara, American Picturebooks from Noah's Ark to the Beast Within, New York: Macmillan, 1976; Bodmer, George, "The Post-Modern Alphabet: Extending the Limits of the Contemporary Alphabet Book, from Seuss to Gorey," CLAQ 14, 3 (Fall 1989) 115-17; Contemporary Authors [On-line]; Gough, John, "The Unsung Dr. Seuss: Theo. Le Sieg," CLAQ 11, 4 (Winter 1986-87) 183-86; Ingalls, Zoë, "The Cat in the Hat, The Butter Battle Book, and other Soupçons of Seuss!" Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 July 1993, B4-B5; Richard L. Mandel, “Children’s Books: Mirrors of Social Development,” The Elementary School Journal 64, 4 (January 1964) 190-99); Stofflet, Mary, Seuss from Then to Now: A Catalogue of the Retrospective Exhibition Organized by the San Diego Museum of Art, New York: Random House, 1986; Toppo, Greg, “See ‘Dick and Jane’ – again,” USA Today, 25 February 2004.
A. Waller
Hastings
Professor of English
Northern State
University
Aberdeen, SD 57401
Return to Wally Hastings'
Children's Literature Page
Return to Wally Hastings'
Homepage
This page last updated November 15, 2006