Jump for Joy!

Jump rope!

Jump Rope!
Skolnik
1974

This ancient artifact was only recently weeded from a public library. Given the publication date, I very well could have checked this out as I was teen in 1974. Even if the information isn’t “wrong”, this just is so old, it’s embarrassing. Check out the array of fashion choices. Just yikes!

When I was thumbing through the book, I was really disappointed in the pictures. I am not referring to the fact they are black and white, but how they are just bad pictures and add nothing to the narrative. It wasn’t just the ones posted here, but all through the book. It was like someone’s mom grabbed their Kodak Instamatic and just pressed the button in the general direction of some jump rope action.

Jumping rope was a pretty standard fare during my elementary school days. Everyone did it. Now I only see jumping rope as part of a fitness routine. Do kids even jump rope any more?

Mary

jump rope back cover

kids jumping rope

jumping rope

Rope lore

3 people jumping rope

how to jump rope

jumping rope

jump rope rhymes

 

10 comments

  1. Maybe the content here deserves a reedit to include a history of jumping rope in other cultures and how jump rope is used in today’s cultures around the world for children and adults. Adding the rhymes are good and should be included. An update for today would make it multicultural and multiracial which is how it should be. I can’t jump rope and I see people use it in their exercise regimens and a reedit should encourage adults to use the jump rope as well.
    This book Jump Rope! has jumped the shark and has jumped to withdrawn….
    …..cut out the photo/pictures and save for decoupage, collage and Dada art (what I should have been doing all these years!!!)…..

  2. The girl on the cover looks eerily identical to my next-door neighbor in 1974, including the shirt.

    Those pictures add absolutely nothing. Too murky and badly composed. Pretty sure my mom could have done better with her Instamatic… this is the quality the neighbor’s mom would come up with. Could Dad look any more bored in the double-jumpers picture? And dig the trousers on the guy in the last photo!

    I recognize some of the rhymes but seeing as how they vary by region and ethnicity, people would have complained about this book giving such proscriptions. And did they even bother putting in Black girls and their amazing double-dutch work? I could never even come close to that.

  3. The playground chants are interesting. I jumped rope a lot during recess in the ’80s and still remember some of the songs I knew then, but many of the ones shown here were unfamiliar to me. I wonder if the playground songs and games are still getting passed on or if they’ve died out. Perhaps it’s not so bad if the ones mentioning physical abuse and drinking have gone away….

  4. !!!!!!!!!!!!!
    That’s NOT Lana Turner! That’s Jean Rogers (of serial Flash Gordon fame.)
    Lazy, lazy, lazy EDITORS…..This Jump Rope book jumped the shark before it even jumped.

  5. *starts reading the rhyme about the duck in a sing-song rhythm*…Jesus Christ, that took a dark turn.

  6. I have a kit that includes a book of jump rope rhymes and different styles as well as two jump ropes. It’s actually circing, But it wouldn’t if the book looked like this!

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