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

by Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0006492460
• ISBN13: 9780006492467
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.6" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

enlightening

I was born in 1967-near the end of Dick & Jane's run. I found it very interesting that there were whole separate story lines based around different religions. I attended an Adventist school and we used the Dick & Jane readers-I am now very curious to know if we utilized the S.D.A version or not. A great read which has fostered great discussion with many of my elders-not too many of my peers were fortunate enough to have been raised with Dick & Jane.

Pleased with service

The book arrived in excellent condition and the sender was very professional and thorough. I would order from him again!

pop culture meets pop cultural studies

Somewhere between the boring textbooks of cultural studies and the objects of culture which the field explores, this book offers an excellent overview of the Dick and Jane readers' evolution over time as the ideals of the society in which Dick and Jane were grounded evolved as well. And what a tumultuous time it was! Through illustrations from the original texts and photographs of cultural change, short essays on subjects and eras, and even the inclusion of Dick and Jane cut-out dolls to stand on one's desk, the authors take us through the evolution and meaning of Dick and Jane, from Dick and Jane's depression-era origins to the loss of their relevance in the sixties, when the books stopped being produced. Both a reminiscence and an excellent analysis of cultural change through a single set of broad-strokes ideals, this text is both a fun read, a strong cultural text, and a solid way for me (or any teacher) to introduce high school media and communications students to the ways in which ideals, ideas, icons and culture affect and are affected by each other over time. Those who look to this book for an explanation of Dick and Jane as representing complexity, as one reviewer does below, seem to have missed the point -- Dick and Jane represented cotton-candy ideals of a conservative and young-minded nature; to ask them to have represented more is to completely misunderstand what cultural studies assumes as a foundation. Those who come to this book with an open mind and an interest in mid-19th-century american culture as seen through the evolution of its primers and iconography will find this an excellent, well-presented, and fun work of scholarship.

It took me back to my fond memories of childhood!

There are so many times that I had wished I were a child again to experience the slow pace of life as opposed to the way it is now. This book has allowed me to do that. It's a wonderful book and I would highly recommend it. As I read each chapter I found myself recalling memories of childhood...friends, school and family. Because we cannot reach back in time, I would sincerely and strongly advise anyone who experienced the original texts in school, to read this book. It will take you there, even if it's in memory.

Dick and Jane where the best!

I didn't think i'd ever see Dick and Jane again. This book is great. I loved reading about them. There are stories from the readers that I still remember. And would like to read all the books over again. What are the chances of seeing the original stories again?