Origin
Originally, these stories were published by Row Peterson and Company as the Alice and Jerry books in the USA.
In 1949 United Kingdom publishers James Nisbet and Company licensed them and had them Anglicised by Mabel O'Donnell and Rona Munro, originally from New Zealand, to make a UK series of four books called Janet and John and they became hugely popular and influential in the teaching of schoolchildren throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Also in 1949 a New Zealand series of seven books was released by Nisbet and used as a textbook in New Zealand primary schools. This was one of the first popular "look-and-say" reading schemes and, as such, introduced the less regular "Key words" at an early stage of reading than the phonic schemes.
Janet and John were portrayed as average English children, living a typical middle-class life, and the books consisted of stories that progressively incorporated key words needed in the development of reading skills.
The stories were illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes.
By the 1970s, Janet and John’s straightforward and simple world was seen as being outdated and the books fell out of favour as did the updated version Kathy and Mark which used the same vocabulary merely changing the names and illustrations in the books.
Read more about this topic: Janet And John
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