1. I just gotta complain about Blogger for a second. It seriously took me like 5 minutes to sign in. Just ludicrous.
...Now, onto the blissful nostalgia...
Scholastic Book Orders.
I remember those things (albeit not all that well...but I do remember how I looked forward to them). Some parents bribe their kids with candy, or with money...mine bribed me with books. I was allowed to order an extra book if I did well in school. Of course there was always a limit to how many books I could get, so I remember going through each page scanning for books and debating on which ones I wanted more, and which ones I could do without. I even want to say that adding up the cost for all the books was one of my earliest math lessons from my dad.
[aside] I remember one of my earlier reading lessons and I was stuck on the word "Farm" and dad could tell I was having problems with it so he pointed to my arm and said "what's this." "my arm" "what sounds does F make?" "fuh" "put it together." "fuh-arm. FARM!" That was either in kindergarten or right before.[/aside]
I also remember the feel of the ultra thin, rips easier than you could ever imagine paper. That stuff was like double thick tissue paper. And boy was it brightly colored. I remember getting books from the "Goosebumps" series...and also possibly those "Scary Stories" books. I think my favorite book was a book of riddles (I was obsessed with Encyclopedia Brown at the peak of the Scholastic Days, and so I liked trying to solve riddles and problems). I don't remember much from the riddles book, but there were a few gems like "What question can you never answer 'yes' to and be telling the truth?" I think my answer was "Are you dead?" But of course, the book's answer was "Are you asleep?" (psh, I think mine is better...some people talk in their sleep...most people don't talk when they're dead...and if they do, it's the zompocalypse, so you better be on your way anyhow.) Or, What gets wetter the more it dries? A towel! oh, and I remember how proud I was of getting that one without having to look at the answer. In any case, they were all very similar to the riddles for kids found on this website.
However, the book did not have the following: "Which month is worst for trees?"
Give up?
"Sep-TIMBER!"
5 comments:
The Scholastic Book shipments were like extra Christmases to me. And, Encyclopedia Brown rules!
I was trying to explain to one of my co-workers about Encyclopecdia Brown the other week... granted I don't believe I ever read the series and if I did I only read one or two of them-- so my explain wasn't that great. do you remember the little prizes we would get when we ordered 'X' amount of books?
We never got to order them. They would have a Scholastic "fair" in the gym and our parents would come with us and we would buy them there. During our library class the day before the fair began, they would take us down and let us look at all the books so we would be able to suitably beg our parents. One of my Scholastic fair "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" books is at my in-laws house. I gave it to Patrick and now he has outgrown it. I should reclaim it next time we are down there!!!
I am down with Encyclopedia Brown. I think I still remember a few of the solutions to the puzzles, like squirrels not backing down trees, paint dripping from buckets indicating how fast someone was walking, etc. Good stuff.
I picked up a few of the Scholastic books myself over the years, funny how as a kid I never thought about how it's odd that a school would host a commercial bookseller.
I was also in love with those Scholastic Books!
Don't even get me started on Blogger, you know my feelings.
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