Elementary School Reading in the 1960's

Note:  It appears that I forgot to post this on February 27th as I had planned.  Here it is, as it was intended!  My apologies for skipping a day!


No matter in what era you attended elementary school, you read a lot.  Being able to read was required over everything else, because if you couldn't read you also couldn't learn about history, read math instructions, understand how to do a science experiment, or sing a song from sheet music.

Reading class in the 1960's

 In the 60's we had the wonderful, iconic "Dick and Jane" books.  I honestly loved those books, so much so that I bought a compilation just a few years ago, just for old times' sake.  I also enjoyed "The Bobbsey Twins" and even "Nancy Drew".  I've been a voracious reader all my life, but especially so when I was in elementary school.

On a nice spring or summer day my dad would tell me to go outside and play.  I would hide whatever book I was reading, and take it out to a quiet area of our property and lose myself in another world.  That's what is great about books!

When I thought about this post today, I had two things in mind.  One was "The Weekly Reader" and the other was the Scholastic book fairs.  Coincidentally, according to Wikipedia,  "The Weekly Reader" still exists--under the ownership of Scholastic!  So they are tied together in my mind and in life.

"The Weekly Reader" was a small newspaper-like publication that we got once a week throughout elementary school.  It was full of news and photos, and was very engaging in its format.  I remember reading it from cover to cover.  In first grade the font was huge, and it got gradually smaller the older we got.  Some of my teachers covered each issue in class, and others just handed them out and let us take them home.  "The Weekly Reader" has actually been in publication since the 1920's, so most of us in the United States probably have memories of it.

A couple of times a year or so Scholastic would bring a library's worth of books to our school, and we could pick some out to buy.  Some of them were there for the taking, and others had to be ordered.  They were ridiculously inexpensive.  When our family had extra money I was able to buy all the books I could read.  They were as varied as the children in the school were.  What a fun time we all had when these book fairs came along!  Then again, when the ordered books came in.  The teacher would hand us our books bundled in rubberbands, with a note with our name on top of the bundle.  It was like our birthday and Christmas all rolled into one!

One of my favorite places when I was growing up was our town library, which I would like to talk about in another post.  It was such a special place, it deserves its own mention!

Nowadays many of us use tablets or phones as books.  It IS more convenient!  You can adjust your font, your background, put in a bookmark without dog-earring your pages, and it's all in one little compact place.  However...and this is a huge however...a tablet or phone will never have that real book smell!  You know that smell--you riffle the pages and all the memories of thousands of books come wafting out.  Of course, you never have to recharge a book either!

I know lots of people who have been readers all their lives.  How about you?  Do you enjoy reading for fun?  Do you spend more time than the average person in your public library, perusing the aisles?  What do you prefer--tablet, phone, or book?  So many of those I know who are readers prefer books over the more modern choices.  I'm glad we can choose the way we want to read!