https://rivergrandrapids.com/holland-bookstore-closure/

https://www.amazon.com/Longing-Form-Fiction-Secondary-Studies/dp/1556355882

It is a little expensive for a paperback, but I think it was well worth getting and reading.  Plus two of the people that I once knew were involved in the writing of the book.  :)

Some of the reels like Heidi had real people in them, but others like A Christmas Carol and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea had people that were artificially created so that they looked appealing to a child.  I guess the creators of the reels thought that the artificial characters worked well enough to tell the story. The pictures were three dimensional so that you could see depth in them, which made them better than most cartoons. But they weren’t always real, although they were rather attractive in appearance.  The pictures of the national parks and wildlife were actually of real places and wild animals.

A View Master

The original View Master

A Reel

Oh, Thooose were the view masters you talking about? {ym}:doh: {ym}:silly:  

They required no batteries and were simple for even a fairly young child to use. One just moved a small handle manually on the side and this would move the reel on to the next photo. We would get lost in story-telling via those little treasures.

Yes, but with whom? Yes, I remember those circular slides, but those I did vaguely remember coming in contact with, were random pictures or tourist-type pictures. I never knew they could be associated with stories I read, like Heidi, as @narnian78 mentioned. I'd forgotten even the name of the gizmo on the links you provided, that ran them. {ym}:blush:  

They required no batteries and were simple for even a fairly young child to use. One just moved a small handle manually on the side and this would move the reel on to the next photo. We would get lost in story-telling via those little treasures.  

We had a few of those at my primary school when I was little, in Australia in the late 1980s! I remember playing with them and being fascinated at seeing the brilliant 3D pictures. They were a fairly old technology by then, but still fun, even while we already had computer games (of a fairly rudimentary sort) and TV and so on. 

I still have the tan viewer like the one shown in the second link. I also have a black one which my Dad owned in the 1950’s, and a blue lighted viewer from the 1970’s which operated on batteries or it could be plugged into a wall outlet.  I have a box full of reels like the one shown in the third link. They are of old television shows like the original Star Trek and Mission: Impossible and other subjects like the 1960’s space program, wildlife, and countries of the world.  They satisfy my need for nostalgia! :)

Here are pictures. What memories these bring back, particularly the 'ancient' brown one:

A View Master

The original View Master

A Reel

They required no batteries and were simple for even a fairly young child to use. One just moved a small handle manually on the side and this would move the reel on to the next photo. We would get lost in story-telling via those little treasures. {ym}:smile:  

@narnian78 I think Viewmasters were a good thing.  They would encourage children and adults to read the original books by offering something visual to accompany the classic stories. The reels could be shown on projectors, although it was a two dimensional projection.

Yes, these "viewmasters" do sound a good idea, but they would take some setting up, I fear, once screens and ye-olde projectors with attached carousels get involved. I could see something like what you are describing being used for classroom or business presentations, for instance, or maybe showing holiday or family snaps. But that depends on where people came from & what they are called locally, and also, I suspect, what we are both trying to explain. We only got television in September in 1956, & the Melbourne Olympic Games were from 22/11/56 to 8/12/56. I suppose the two events were tied together, somehow. None of the 4 schools I attended, were all that fancy, though the State schools at least had good maps, unlike the Private boarding school I attended. 

I think Viewmasters were a good thing.  They would encourage children and adults to read the original books by offering something visual to accompany the classic stories. The reels could be shown on projectors, although it was a two dimensional projection.  I don’t know if the viewers or projectors were available in other countries, but here in the U. S. they were sold in many toy stores and in Sears catalogs.  And they were inexpensive entertainment for that time.  They were something visual that kids of the 1960’s and ‘70’s could appreciate. Today’s technology doesn’t offer much to get people to read the original books.