Dick & Jane

Joan Shepherd

I’m reporting on a book I read some time ago but have never forgotten.

It  is an easy read, well  illustrated and has action leaving you wanting more. The vocabulary is easy without any need of a dictionary or asking someone nearby  what a certain word means..

The main characters are  Dick and his friend, Jane,  whose names are the title of the book, Dick and Jane. Jane may be his sister, in fact, but it doesn’t matter if they are friends or related, because there is no hanky-panky in this story. Dick has dark hair, as I remember, and is about 6 or 7 years old. Jane is younger, going by height of the character in the drawings.  If these details sound vague, it is because it has been about 70 years since I read the book but their ages aren’t given.

Action starts right away in the story, after being told briefly, in only two words,  “see Dick”, and there he is in a colored picture on the same page as the words. 

Dick starts running, on Pg. 2. We don’t know why, but the text says, “See Dick run” and again, there is a picture of Dick running, legs in motion, his body involved. Although she hasn’t been introduced, Jane is presented on the next page and peeking ahead of the story, one could wonder if Dick is running to meet Jane or just having a race with himself? This is part of the intrigue of the book. We never find out why or how the action gets started or ends.  

Next we meet Jane. “See Jane. “ She gets the same introduction to the readers as Dick, no feminine favoritism here. Jane appears to be a sweet little girl wearing a dress since when this book was written, no girls, young or mature, wore slacks or jeans or shorts. She meets Dick and the two of them run off and the drawing shows and the words tell, “See Dick and Jane run.” The brief vocabulary in this book leaves much to the imagination.  Was this a planned meeting? Are they running away from home? We have to be content just to know they can run. Which, by the way, is more than this reporter can do at the present.

 Baby Sally, who may be part of this family, appears to be about 2 years old with a chubby smiling face and blond natural curls. She may be younger as I remember her sitting on a blanket, obviously not running with Dick and Jane. She is brought into the story with the same intro, “See Sally” and is concerned with playing with a ball.  “Oh!”, she says, as the ball in the picture rolls away. “Oh, oh”, Nobody in this tale ever shows any emotion other than pure joy in running, playing with a large rubber ball, or, with the  character, “Spot”, the dog, and you can guess what he looks like. Spot can run too, which leads to him chasing the ball or simply running like Dick  and Jane did at the beginning of the story. Maybe Spot is supposed to go find Dick and Jane.  We don’t find out but Baby Sally is alert and smiling cheerfully says, “See Spot run” or for more emplasis, “Oh, Oh, see  Spot run.” 

To round our the story, which definitely needed something at this point, we meet a cat named Fluffy or Puffy of Muffy, I can’t remember. You will have to read the book to find out its name and if she can run too. 

I don’t want to give the ending away, but since the story is based on a limited 8-10 words, there isn’t much drama remaining. We may want to know if Spot did run away, since he is never on a leash, if Dick grows up to enter a marathon, if Jane finds another friend to play with besides Dick and what that emotional separation might create. Baby Sally? Her fate is wide open since her character is the least developed. As for Spot, dogs come and go and very few turn into a Lassie to make movies and a lot of money. Cats are a dime a dozen even cute ones like Fluffy, but at least we don’t see her run over on the side of the road. 

But the book Dick and Jane has been around for years, thousands of adults and children have read it more than once, sometimes stumbling over the words but with a real sense of accomplishment when finished with the story because it could be the very first book they have read by themselves. By the time a sequel of Dick and Jane as adults is written, it will undoubtedly have more words, even some bad ones, and far more action. This book is such an easy read you could read it before falling asleep and it is a small paperback that won’t hurt if it falls on your face if you dozed off. 

Written in Rehab:

Written one week after falling at Parkpoint Gym, breaking my femur , surgery at Kaiser Santa Rosa that late afternoon, transferred to Sonoma Care two days later, the same facility where I once worked as Nursing Supervisor. ( I haven’t told that to very many staff.) I have been informed that I will not be bearing any weight on my right leg, the same leg that I had a knee replacement 3 months ago, for the next 3 months.

March 2012