Children's books (was Inside, Outside, Near Lane, Far Lane, whatever...)

[Carol]

Mary Ann:
> 
> I never read the Dick and Jane books (I attended first grade in
Montreal in 1974) but I had an awful lot of Bobbsey Twins books.  As
much as I enjoyed these books it bothered me immensely that the kids
never aged and that they started the same grades over and over and
over again. <snip>

Carol responds:

I had a similar but not identical experience with the Bobbsey Twins
books. The ones I started out with had Nan and Bert as
twelve-year-olds and Flossie and Freddie as six-year-olds. They were
set, as far as I could tell, in the 1950s, with bicycles and
walkie-talkies and so forth. The drawings were of modern kids,
sometimes wearing shorts. Then I read the original book, which
appeared to be set in a much earlier time (I'm guessing around 1910)
and the kids were ten and five respectively. I remember trying to
figure out what months their birthdays must be in to work out the age
difference--obviously, the older twins had an earlier birth month--but
I couldn't figure out a reasonable way for the era to change so
drastically. I ended up just ignoring it and enjoying the books
individually without trying to make them consistent within the series.
(Good preparation for HP, I suppose.)

Carol, linking to a Bobbsey Twins website that covers the
inconsistencies and the history of the series for anyone interested:

http://home.netcom.com/~drmike99/aboutbobbsey.html