I found one of these books in a thrift store and love the simplicity of it. I eventually collected the first five in the series. There is something so innocent and optimistic about elementary school books from the forties and fifties, especially the science textbooks. Everything is so clean and orderly. Everything is classifiable, knowable, natural. I love the illustrations -- they remind me of the Dick and Jane books (could they be illustrated by the same artist?). Of course, they are now seen as retrograde, too simplistic and with no diversity at all (as white as white can be), but nevertheless I find them charming. Even this science text tells a story -- the reader follows the kids through the seasons. In contrast to modern elementary school textbooks, where the page is cluttered with photos, diagrams and text blocked off in a square outside of the "main" text, making the whole thing overstimulating and confusing, the reader of these textbooks can follow without distractions the point of each page, each picture, each chapter. I know modern textbooks need to be "interesting" to hold short attention spans, but more is not necessarily better for a very young reader.

The chapters cover: Where Plants and Animals Live, Water and Land, The Air Around Us, The Sky Above Us, The World in Spring, Where We Get our Food, Keeping Well and Safe. ( )