Janet and John
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Janet and John are the main characters in a series of reading books for children aged 4-7 years.
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[edit] Origin
Originally, these stories were written by Mabel O'Donnell and Rona Munro from New Zealand, and published by Row Peterson and Company as the Alice and Jerry books in the USA.
However in 1949, publishers James Nisbet and Company licensed and sold them in the UK as the Janet and John books and they became hugely popular and influential in the teaching of schoolchildren throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
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.
By the 1970s, Janet and John’s straightforward and simple world was seen as being outdated and the books fell out of favour.
[edit] Revival
The series was revamped in 2001 [1] by the daughters of Rona Munro 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 ethnic minority characters and contemporary styles of dress.
[edit] Parodies
The simple sentence structure and repetition in the books became a target for many parodies.
The radio and television broadcaster Terry Wogan regularly satirises the series on his BBC Radio 2 show by reading out stories clearly based on the premise of the original Janet and John books, but deriving humour through euphemism and innuendo. Despite the obvious implied meaning, the stories' true meanings are never discussed, partly due to the morning timeslot of the show when children may be listening. A CD of the recording was made available for the charity Children In Need and raised a substantial amount of money.
