Features

This Annual has a lot of features, and a lot of variety. They include; Puzzles & Quizzes, Factual, Photo Features and Poems.

Puzzles & Quizzes

Pick a Star from Judy  (Page: 4)

A fun puzzle to start off the book, shows 10 stars of the comic: Sandra, Betty, Janie, Val, Dixie, Colleen, Heather, Bumble, Tillie and Trixie. All of which appear in this book. Getting someone to pick a number between 10 and 50 and starting at a certain point, the puzzle gets them to count to that number anticlockwise. Then starting at the star they stop at count backwards to the number again, and you can surprise them by knowing it will always stop at Heather!

Millie and Tillie at the …  (Pages: 22-23/48)

These are fun puzzle pages with different themes. The first is Millie and Tillie at the Circus, the second is Millie and Tillie in the Garden.There is a nice variety of puzzles. Some classics like join the dots and spot the difference and even some I’d have to take a minute to think about today like this “1200 people came to to see this circus, for every 6 girls there was 5 boys and 4 grown ups. How many of each were there?”

Some of these puzzles remind me of similar situations used in the popular Professor Layton DS games.  Just goes to show good classics will still be used today.

 

Quick Tick Fashion Quiz  (Pages: 86-87)

A test on your fashion sense and knowledge. Including this question

It is quite fun to look at 60s fashion and the answer is “b” in case you were wondering.

 

Factual

These features discuss the origins of such things as the names of the months or precious gems, though it has mixture of myth in it.

The Story of the Months   (Pages: 14-15)

Along with colourful drawings this tells where each month gets their name for example January named after the God of beginnings- Janus, or May named after the Goddess Maia

 

Perfect Gems   (Pages: 16/121)

This article has little facts about gems along with some mythical origins. Also includes a break down of the type of birthstones

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star   (Page: 32)

This another little factoid piece pointing out star constellations.

Messages by Fan   (Page: 39)

This is like sign language with fans. Used

At Home with British Birds  (Pages: 63/79)

An interesting feature that is a good opportunity to learn about different birds

The Story of the Song D’Ye Ken John Peel?  (Page: 64)

A self explanatory title, it also the lyrics of the song.

The Story of the Days   (Pages: 122-123)

Similar to the Months article discuses  the origin of the names of the Days

 

Countries

More learning opportunities with  features looking at different countries.

Janie on the Go  (Pages: 47/78)

Janie B. Quick was a character from a humour strip. Instead of a strip, here she narrates a trip around Borneo and Belgium. With quick facts about the place accompanied by dipicted drawings.

The Emerald Isle  (Page:62)

A very quaint look at Ireland.

 

Photo Features

Photo features and stories would become very popular in later issues and annuals, but even in these early days there was photos used even though they wouldn’t be as glossy as later annuals.

Great Girls   (Pages: 65-68)

4 pages of photo of women who are sport winners.

Mountain Guide (Page: 80)

This is a short feature on Gwen Moffat, who was a mountain guide and at the time only one of 2 people certified to guide in Scotland during dangerous Winter weather. Though the feature here only consists of a couple of photos  and 2 short paragraphs, she did write an autoboiography “The Space Below My Feet”.  She also went on to write fiction novels, including a series of books about a sleuth; Melinda Pink.

Going to Ballet School  (Pages: 109-112)

A feature about the daily routines at ballet school

 

Poems and Rhymes 

Teaser Tales  (Pages:24-25/40-41/88-89)

These are fun humourous ryming tales, the first tale of Millicent Churl who couldn’t get her hear to curl. She finally achieves it through getting a fright.

Lilian Dobby whose parents suggested she take up a hobby, a tale of an overly studious girl who ends oup taking up so many hobbies she ends up failing school work. Ending on the moral Don’t Overwork and don’t Overplay

Primrose Long who as a child was never strong she breaks things when she isn’t strong enough to carry them. Seeing a hypnotist she gets stong but now she breaks thing by being too strong so her parents buy steel furniture.

 

When I Grow Up (Page: 77)

A poem about a girl fantasising about what she’d like to be when she grows up. Prospective jobs include Air Hostess, nurse, P.C. typist and concert pianist.

Pets ABC (124-125)

Another Ryming Feature running through a guide to pets “a to z”  though they cheat by putting xyz together for “zoo”

 

Overall Impressions

There is a great variety in this annual, and a lot of strong and smart characters. Even blogging about it, took me quite a while because there was so much in the annual, to cover.   This was a bit before my time but it is still good to see familiar characters and interesting to see how the format developed. Some of the characters that were first shown in prose form were revised into picture story format, updated and lasted to later issues/annuals. Also characters I was not familiar with like, Tricky Trixie, were quite interesting. The characters were good role models, they were brave, or had good jobs.

Of course there are some stereotypes (such as Native Americans portrayal) and the use of terms  that would be considered non-pc today; such as cripple.  But these were just products of their time and even if they could be seen negatively, actually, often the “cripple” such as in Big Sister helps save the day, so even being disabled didn’t mean you couldn’t be a good role model.

There are a lot of features a lot of which seemed to be aimed at informing the readers about variety of subjects. Its interesting to see like some of the features where people have ended up now. Such as Gwen Moffat who seems to have led an interesting life.

The art can be a bit mixed, some is better than others. There is a lot of colour used throughout the book, which I was surprised at, a lot of annuals tended not to use full colour throughout.

It is an entertaining look back at the time period, yet other than a few dated sayings and fashions it holds up well today.