Essay Comparing The Backwards Day And The Moon Jumpers

Family Member Illustrations of 1950’s Children’s Literature

For the historical literature selections, The Backwards Day and The Moon Jumpers, both had a father and mother present in the story. The illustrations in both books showed the mothers in dresses, as where the father in The Backwards Day was in a suit and tie while in the The Moon Jumpers the father was in pants and collared shirt. Figure 1 shows an illustration of the family members in The Moon Jumpers and figure 2 is an illustration of the family members in The Backwards Day. The Cat in the Hat is the only book to present a mother but not a father in the story. This is evident as only a mother is referred to in the text, and shown in the illustrations; as well her presence was also

Each line about the father repeats for the mother, for example, “His father stood and looked at him. “Goodnight,” he said.” - “His mother stood and looked at him. “Goodnight,” she said”. This text follows formatting for every action the parents take. Furthermore, the parents are depicted in the role of playmate to their son, as they both repeat what his does at the table:

“Then his father went to the place that was the little boy’s place at the table. He turned the little boy’s chair backward to the table and sat. He tied the little boy’s napkin backward around his neck. His mother went to the place that was his baby sister’s place at the table. She turned his baby sister’s high chair backward to the table and sat. She tied his baby sister’s bib backwards around her neck.”.

The text of The Cat in the Hat, was written from the son’s point of view as he refers to himself as I, his sister as Sally and his mother as mother. Throughout the text the children are almost always refer to together with the terms “we” and “us”. The text provides evidence that the mother is the leader of the family, keeps a neat home, and possibly strict with what the children can