Janet and John

Janet and John are the main characters in a series of reading books for children aged 4–7 years.

Originally, these books were based on a series published by Row Peterson and Company as the Alice and Jerry books in the United States. Alice and Jerry was written by Mabel O'Donnell and the stories were illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes. In 1949 United Kingdom publishers James Nisbet and Company licensed them and had them Anglicised by Mabel O'Donnell and Rona Munro to make a UK series of four books called Janet and John. The Janet and John books used the same artwork as the Alice and Jerry books but completely new text was written by Munro, originally a New Zealander. Also in 1949 a New Zealand series of seven books was released by Nisbet and used as a textbook in New Zealand primary schools.

The books became hugely popular and influential in the teaching of schoolchildren throughout the 1950s and 1960s. This was one of the first popular "look-and-say" reading schemes and, as such, introduced the less regular "Key words" at an earlier stage of reading than the phonics schemes.

Janet and John were portrayed as average English children, living a typical middle-class life that reflected many of the stereotypes of the time, and the books consisted of stories that progressively incorporated key words needed in the development of reading skills:

By the 1970s, Janet and John’s straightforward and simple world was seen as being outdated and the books fell out of favour as did an updated version Kathy and Mark which used the same vocabulary, merely changing the names and illustrations in the books.

The Janet and John copyright was sold to StarKids, who rewrote the material. Alison Bierrum and Elizabeth Mackenzie-Wood the daughters of Rona Munro, who had nothing to do with the StarKids version, were appalled by them. The series was revamped in 2001 by Bierrum and MacKenzie-Wood, and released by publishers StarKids with Janet and John given a totally new appearance. The new series of 33 books featured modern themes, the inclusion of a more culturally diverse cast of characters and contemporary styles of dress. These were produced and illustrated by Tandem Design, based in Southampton.

In September 2007, Summersdale Publishers reissued the first two Janet and John books, Here We Go and Off to Play, exactly as they were first published in 1949, except with hardcovers as they were primarily intended as nostalgia gifts for those who learned to read with these books.

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