When I was a child much of my entertainment was book and paper based. Puzzles and games books were very popular and this one was my favourite - it gave me endless enjoyment.
I desperately wanted this toy theatre but was still too young to be able to make it with any dexterity. I also wanted it to look exactly like this illustration but did not yet have the skill to replicate the pictures accurately and any concept of copying an illustration was the stuff of science fiction.
Although my parents gave me a wonderful array of toys and books to play with, the general idea at the time was that as children we would then entertain ourselves. My parents had busy and active lives and we would never have thought to ask them to make something for us like this in the same way that I would spend hours constructing something for my son if he expressed any interest.
There were a number of staples in these books.
Pages to decipher with pictures and numbers . . .
A maze was an absolute must (and there would have been more than one in the book) . . .
A page full of different types of puzzles . . .
There were always pages where you had to spot the deliberate mistakes . . .
Pages where you had to find things . . .
Of course there were always pages of pictures to colour . . .
I think I was quite avant garde with this one, turning it into a sunset scene instead of the traditional sunny day!
All of these scans come from 'The Jack and Jill Book of Games and Puzzles', printed in 1965, described inside as 'the merriest book of the year!'
7 comments:
Love it! I would have loved a book like this when I was young. We didn't have a TV on the farm so we had to entertain ourselves as well and use our own imagination. I would make up stories in my head and then have my teddy bears and dolls act them out. Thanks for sharing your childhood book with us. Darlene from Canada
I loved this type of book and had lot's of time on the farm to work on them. Great collections!
This book is way too cute! How fun. I loved books that had lots of to-do's in them.
I love your colouring-in Sharon. I wonder how old you were when you did it...I always started my colouring-ins with great excitement but it wore off pretty quickly, I found staying in the lines boring and frustrating after a while. Lovely little book x
Oh my goodness, your post brought back so many memories! I agree a maze was an absolute must – it was always the thing I tackled first. I loved colouring in, but I’m absolutely sure none of my efforts were anywhere near as creative as your sunset. I remember a Rupert book with ‘slides’ that you cut out and threaded through slots in a ‘TV’ – I loved that book and spent hours ‘watching’ the slide shows.
Thank you for sharing the link to Ewa's flowers on Saturday, I’m going to take a look shortly.
How fun! When I was a kid we had some old books that had party ideas and party games circa the fifties/early sixties and I always wanted to do them but since it was the 1980's it was "uncool" lol!
Your coloring page is beautiful!
Hi Sharon,
A wonderful trip down memory lane. It makes us realize how much things have changed. Today it is all about cell phones and texting. Do kids even play board games anymore?
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