"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. Do you remember silly, mischievous Baby Sally, and Spot, America's favorite spaniel? This new quilt with Dick and Jane brings to life the cast of characters who are emblems of the American Dream. Here's your chance to step back into the innocent 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 brings back the Dick and Jane phenomenon from their birth during the Depression to their retirement in the stormy 1960s.
Dick and Jane
Dick and Jane were created by Zerna Sharp for a series of basal readers written by William S. Gray to teach children to read. The characters first appeared in 1930 and continued in a subsequent series of books through the final version in 1965. These readers were used in classrooms in the United States and in other English-speaking countries for nearly four decades, reaching the height of their popularity in the 1950s, when 80 percent of first-grade students in the United States used them. Although the Dick and Jane series of primers continued to be sold until 1973 and remained in use in some classrooms throughout the 1970s, they were eventually replaced with other reading texts by the 1980s and gradually disappeared from school curricula.