[higgmeister]

First published in 1980, Where's Spot was inspired by the reaction of Eric's two-year-old son to an advert in which lifting the flap revealed a funny picture and to a bedtime story made up to go along with it. This is not the reading books we remember from earlier years.

[raccoonradio]

That was probably this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_and_jane

>>Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp[1] and published by Scott Foresman, that were used to teach children to read from the 1930s through to the 1970s in the United States...The main characters, Dick and Jane, were a little boy and girl. Supporting characters included Baby (or Sally), Mother, Father, Spot (originally a cat in the 1930s, but a dog in later editions), Puff the cat, and Tim the teddy bear.