When Life Seemed Simpler

We have a large collection of school readers, including, but hardly limited to, the familiar Dick and Jane books, and find their contents fascinating. Each generation embodies its hopes for its children in the schoolbooks they encourage into existence. In When Life Seemed Simpler we reproduce pages of pictures, frequently with their text, from a variety of readers from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. There are significant changes of empahsis from decade to decade, but there are also many common themes. Though many people deride these old schoolbooks, claiming that their idealistic projections have little or nothing to do with real life, Darling finds them frequently illuminating and touching. He grants they present a utopian vision, but points out that good models set forth for young people are critical in the formation of their characters.