Janet and John: Book One (Janet & John Series)

Product Information

I'm now thinking of "investing" in a few sets of Oxford Reading Tree books. No doubt in 2050 they will be worth a mint as my own children's' generation are falling over themselves to recapture the adventures of Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy the dog. Does anyone else look out for the spectacles and dog's bone when they are reading these books with their kids, or is it just me? The Janet and John known to children around the world during the 1950s to 1970s have undergone a makeover, thanks to English publishers Star Kids. a b c d e Lightfoot, Liz (10 January 2001). "Cross words greet the return of Janet and John". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 22 August 2019. director-general from 1940, the Department of Education embarked on an ambitious programme of syllabus reform, culminating in 1948 with the big one — reading. Janet and John arrived as part of this reform. After six months of the easy life, scholastically speaking, in Primer One, I 'skipped' Primer Two — much to my relief, as it was taught by an elderly woman who was very free with the strap, and was rumoured to be a witch — and went straight to Primer Three. There I met Janet and John and learnt to read.

I have never been ashamed of reading books which I have kept from my childhood. I've even made a point of going out to buy some which got lost along the way. Five years ago, I made a special trip to the fabulous Hay-on-Wye to buy the Famous Five series because it had to be the versions I had read when I was nine, not the latest reprints where they all wear jeans instead of shorts. Last Christmas, I bought my 38-yr-old fiance a copy of the Roy of the Rovers annual he'd had when he was a kid and to say he was over the moon would be a total understatement. There really is nothing to beat a good bit of nostalgia, especially when it comes in the shape of books. Long may it continue. Penguin’s publication of a set of satirical spoofs on its classic Ladybird books will no doubt attract a lot of attention from anyone who grew up with them in the 60s, 70s and 80s. With titles such as The Shed; The Wife; The Husband; and The Hipster, Penguin’s tongue-in-cheek “adult” Ladybirds should find a ready market among those who were given the originals as a way of teaching them to read.

jeers of 'brainbox!' and 'four-eyes!' accompanied with surreptitious thumps. (Any boy caught hitting a girl would have got the strap.) Male teachers did not seem overjoyed at my constantly raised hand either. At my all-girl secondary school, it was a huge relief not to have to feel ambivalent about knowing the answers.

Not to be outdone, they had Hazeley and Morris create a series of spoof Ladybird books just for Penguin. Depressing comedy In New Zealand, as Margaret Tennant has shown, the welfare state programme and the focus on families worked for children at the most basic level. By 1954 the average 15-year-old boy was 100 mm taller and 12 kg heavier than in 1934. Though girls made less dramatic gains, they were taller by 40 mm and heavier by 7.5 kg. School medical inspections showed that malnutrition had In 2001, when the books were "updated" for the modern generation, the perceived social stereotyping was toned down and more [ie any] ethnic minority characters were added.I remember a great sense of achievement in moving from the Janet & John red book (number one I think) to the blue book, aged about six or seven at my primary school in north London. I was as fascinated with the typeface as with the illustrations; the beginning of a lifelong love of reading and creative writing. Interestingly though, my schooling was interrupted by a family move to Scotland for 18 months. When I returned to my primary school in the last year before going to secondary school, my reading and writing ability - according to the teachers - far exceeded those of my classmates. And I don't recall reading Janet & John books in Edinburgh. Ladybird books were originally conceived in 1915 by a Loughborough company called Wills & Hepworth. Their ownership has changed over the years, moving to the Pearson group in 1972 and then absorbed by the publishing behemoth, Penguin in 1999.