It's that 'Back to School' Time of Year... Here's a Way for us 'Older' Kids to Experience the Thrill...

Books to Help you Remember what you may have Forgotten

It's that time of year again... Here in Connecticut it's crisp fall mornings, the leaves will begin to change and you'll be driving to work in the morning... behind a school bus! But don't you just love this time of year! For me it brings to mind fond memories of the beginning of the school year!

While the students are cracking open those text books, there are 3 fun books for us to crack open in celebration of the season! Books that will have you say, "Hey, I remember that!"

I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School by Caroline Taggart

"Witty, engaging, and fun, this little book will appeal to the student in each of us. A one-of-a-kind collection of hundreds of facts learned long ago, such as:

*Our Changing World: Test your knowledge of the latest geography.

*Prose and Poetry: From Shakespeare to diphthongs, English class will come alive again here.

*Math and Science: Quotients, phalanges, and protons . . . do these long-forgotten words take you back to high school days?

*History: As Santayana once said so well: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

With small snippets of information, this book is entertaining & fun. You can turn a page to any part of the book and find something interesting. Of course there is a great section on Literature, and a interesting entry... Zora Neale Hurston, a much forgotten but important African-American woman writer, who wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God. Alice Walker helped bring attention back to Zora Neale Hurston by promoting her writing.

Another book of snippets of helpful & fun information, My Grammar and I... Or Should That Be Me? : How to Speak and Write it Right by Caroline Taggart and J.A.Wines. "Sharpen your language skills and navigate your way around grammatical minefields with this entertaining and practical guide. For anyone who has ever been stumped by dangling modifiers and split infinitives, or for those who have no idea what these things even are, My Grammar and I...Or Should That Be Me? offers practical and humorous guidance on how to avoid falling into language pitfalls."

*Sentence Structure: Let's ponder the subject or object: Is it "I" or is it "me"?

*Parts of Speech: Is it "whose" or "who's"? "Which" or "that"?

*Punctuation: So where does that comma go, anyway?

*Spelling and Confusables: There are times when the spelling "rules" confuse.

*Elements of Style: You'll find there's lots more to know about grammar.

(. . . and for the grammar know-it-all, there are entertaining "Smart Aleck" tidbits throughout.)

And finally the book filled with all those memory tricks, I, Before E (Except after C): Old-School ways to Remember Stuff by Judy Parkinson.

*"Thirty days hath September . . . " To figure out a calendar?

*"Every Good Boy Does Fine" to remember the notes on the treble clef?

These ingenious, practical memory techniques abound in I Before E (Except After C) with its hundreds of curious sayings arranged in easy-to-find categories that include:

Geographically Speaking, Time and the Calendar, Think of a Number, & The Sky at Night and by Day.

All three books are hardcover, about the size of a trade paperback and are designed for gift giving with a nice bookplate ready for personalization. They are available individually from your local bookstore now! They all cover a variety of subjects that you can revisit just by picking up one of them and glancing thru. They are bite size pieces of up-to-date info, not written like an encyclopedia but more like a book of trivia! A fun journey for those of us that have been out of school for a little while! These books will amuse you and maybe even shake the memory tree a bit! Take this mini quiz and see how you do...

In Einstein's Theories of Relativity, E = MC2 what does C stand for again?

C is the velocity of light

What are the seven wonders of the world?

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Lighthouse of Alexandria, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, The Status of Zeus at Olympia, The Great Pyramid of Giza (of the seven, only the Great Pyramid is still in existence)

What is onomatopoeia?

A word or phrase that sounds (a bit) like the sounds it is meant to convey: buzz, purr, or Tennyson's the murmuring of innumerable bees.

What was the war of 1812? War between the U.S. and Britain, actually lasted nearly three years, from 1812 to 1815. Britain was already at war with France (under Napoleon) and the U.S. sided with the French. American ships, trying to break a blockade that would prevent supplies from reaching France, were being seized by the British, who then coerced American seamen into the Royal Navy. On top of that, the U.S. was disputing British control of territories in Canada; New England's support for Britain complicated the issue further. This war -- the last time the U.S. and Britain fought on opposing sides -- ended in stalemate when the British defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and subsequently lifted their blockade.

I want to thank Caitlin of FSB Associates for sharing these books with me! I thoroughly enjoyed them! Thank you!

I'm glad I could share these with you all! Now share something with me! What memory shortcuts do you remember from school? Or any fun trivia!?

Happy Reading... Suzanne