Figure 1.--

I remember "Beacon Readers" from primary school. They were graded reading books for different ages. Our school did have a library - but the books in there were mostly for the older children - the "top class". But we also had "class libaries" which were really just racks with a few books on them. There were also whole sets of books in the cupboard which we read as a class. We took turns in reading aloud to the teacher which could be a trial for some! I remember a title from one of the HBC pages--"Careful Hans" and did read it and re-read it. We were allowed to choose a book when we couldn't go out to play because of the weather. I remember the book as being soft covered and well-thumbed with large print and illustrations - it must have been in the school for years! I remember Hans helping his grandmother make cheese or something - and something went wrong - maybe he was being too careful! Anyway - I had forgotten that up until I saw the HBC page. When I moved up to another class this book was no longer available to me.

School Books

I agree with HBC that the school books fir children can offer a wide range of insights on a given country. When I first started at school - in the infants - there was a series called "Janet and John" books as readers. Later on (the late 60s) there were starting to be rumblings about them - because Janet was always in the kitchen helping "Mummy" and John was always helping Dad mend the car. For one thing very few families at my primary school had cars - and there was the start of "feminism" and an objection to teaching certain "gender roles" to children. My Mum didn't approve of them even - she wasn't a feminist - but she did think that boys should help out around the house - well she had no choice as we were all boys. In the 80s some of the "backlash" books went over the top - the girls were repairing the cars and the boys were in the kitchen! I wish I could get hold of some of these - as HBC says not just for clothing styles but social attitudes. I also remember "Beacon Readers" from primary school. They were graded reading books for different ages. There were also whole sets of books in the cupboard which we read as a class. We took turns in reading aloud to the teacher which could be a trial for some! I remember a title from one of the HBC pages--"Careful Hans". I remember the book as being soft covered and well-thumbed with large print and illustrations - it must have been in the school for years! I remember Hans helping his grandmother make cheese or something - and something went wrong - maybe he was being too careful! Anyway - I had forgotten that up until I saw the HBC page. When I moved up to another class this book was no longer available to me. I can recall various books at primary school - but had forgotten those Beacon Readers until I saw the message from the Canadian reader (and it is interesting that they shared those books too). Unfortunately I do not have those books - they belonged to the school and would probably be hard to find now. Later on these "readers" were Ladybird books - and tried to have a more "modern" outlook. However - the social attitudes in the books (like the clothing too I think) were not always accurate for the majority of children - they took a very middle class view - but,taking this into account, I agree with you - and I can only talk about England really - there must be school textbooks for almost every country these days (although I know that in the 1950s India and some African countries still used books shipped out from England and learnt Shakespeare and Dickens at secondary school - which is ridiculous but it was before writers from those countries started to get published - which they are now in abundance).

School Libraries

Our school did have a library - but the books in there were mostly for the older children - the "top class". But we also had "class libaries" which were really just racks with a few books on them. We were allowed to choose a book when we couldn't go out to play because of the weather. The Beacon readers were thus available to us. I remember the "Careful Hans" story as one of my favorites and did choose it from our class library and did read it and re-read it.

Clothing Insights

What does strike me now is that it was through books such as these Beacon Readers (as well as Grimm) that I got my ideas of what German boys were like and how they dressed. I made a trip to Germany in 1970 it wasn't that different to these illustrations really. German boys looked odd dressed as illustrated in the books - but when I met them they were just boys like me and we got on. But I didn't want to dress like them - yet. I would have done in time - but I could not have come back to England dressed like that - yet I was quite happy to stand out in Germany amongst them.But I'd argue with my Mum about the most trivial of things - and so would other boys I know. Anyway - I'm rambling again - I'll try to pull things together to explain what I am trying to say in an "essay" - but maybe it's better just to tell things how they were for me as trying to analyse it all gets confusing! (although I think it could be worthwhile in a sense). It is only fairly recently that things have really changed. In fact arond 1970 itself I would say. I suppose that if a German boy had read William stories (also from the 1920s) with the original illustrations things would not have looked that different if he came to England in the 1960s for most boys - the big difference coming in being jeans as I have discussed recently.

Created: 1:30 PM 11/26/2005
Last updated: 2:48 PM 11/26/2005