Jane Read

Jane Read
Main Character
Gender	Female
Animal	Aardvark
Portrayed by	Sonja Ball
First appeared	Arthur's Nose (books) Arthur's Eyes (cartoon)
Family	David Read (husband) Arthur Read (son) D.W. Read (daughter) Kate Read (daughter) Dave (father) Jessica (older sister) Fred (brother) Lucy (younger sister)

Jane Read is Arthur, D.W., and Kate's mother who is an accountant for Ed Crosswire. She wants the best for her three children, but sometimes embarasses them. She is married to David Read. Her dad is Grandpa Dave. She has two sisters named Jessica and Lucy who appear in D.W. Thinks Big and a brother named Fred who appears in Arthur's Perfect Christmas. Her maiden name is unknown. She is voiced by Sonja Ball since season 1.

Appearance

Jane Read is depicted with a tan complexion and shaggy brown hair and wears a pink sweater over a white shirt, blue jeans, and white Velcro shoes with purple loops. Like her son Arthur, the white shirt she wears underneath the sweater is tucked into her pants. Originally, she had a long snout and was based upon an actual aardvark with the rest of her family in Arthur's Nose. She and the other aardvarks were redesigned in Arthur's Eyes that was published three years later. In the '80s, she and the other aardvarks had their snouts gradually shortened until it became flat. In the books, she wore different clothes of different colors.

Past life

Jane grew up near Unidentified Town on Grandpa Dave's Farm (inferred as her dad Grandpa Dave is said to have lived there for a long time). When Jane was a baby, she wore a pink dress with white cuffs, a white hair bow, and white shoes; but the diaper was covered by the skirt, although it is often likely cloth diapers since they were in favor when she and the people around her age and older were babies. During her high school years when she started dating David, she had longer hair and wore pink disco clothes with white boots that were fashionable between the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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  Jane as Grandpa Dave's baby girl

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  Jane as a teenager

Other Media

In the Living Books computer games, she had a light brown complexion and orange hair (and sometimes straight hair) in Arthur's Teacher Trouble and a light complexion and light brown hair in Arthur's Birthday. It was likely due to color and tone restrictions during the 16-bit era of computers and software. In those two games, she was voiced by Angela McGowan before the cartoon show replaced her with Sonja Ball.

In the later games during the 32-bit era of computers and software such as Arthur's Thinking Games, her appearance was the same as she looks in the cartoon show.

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  Jane Read in Arthur's Teacher Trouble

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  Jane Read in Arthur's Birthday

Personality

Jane is quite caring and loving to her three children. Arthur always refers to her as "Mom", but D.W. usually refers to her as "Mommy", because D.W. is younger than Arthur. She wants the best for her children, such as making sure they keep their rooms clean. She is also the most talented at cleaning the house.