Textbook: Not Exactly a Memoir

Achingly beautiful. Rosenthal finds the beauty in the mundane and reminds us to cherish each moment. The book is all the more poignant when you find out she died of cancer not long after this was published. I loved the interactive elements. You can text a phone number and vote in surveys and receive audio clips of things she mentions. I've never felt so immediately connected to a community of readers.

“Just look at us, all of us, quietly doing our thing and trying to matter. The earnestness is inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time.”

“The same five letters can be rearranged to express my daily sense of—and relationship to—time. First from the viewpoint of childhood, then young adulthood, and now, the present. ACRES of show more it..CARES about it. RACES against it.” show less

This book's format was celebrated as revolutionary and wildly creative back in 2016. Reading it in 2023 is (for me,) like following someone on social media who chain-posts about nothing all day long.

Amy KR was a popular children's book writer and apparently delightful person but my cynical side wonders if her death at a relatively young age propelled Textbook from "mildly interesting experiment," to "fantastic book," status.

When boredom took a firm hold, I considered reading a few "bits," at a time instead of rolling through the book page after page. Then I realized that not a single 'bit,' thus far had struck me as amusing, inspiring, wise, or even universally "human," or relatable. I bailed out when Social Studies ended.

Even show more allowing for the change in novelty sensibilities, this was a bust for me, although I'm typically a sucker for unconventional bio/memoirs.




February 2023
Macon, GA
Hardback / owned show less

Clever, clever, clever! This is less a read than an interactive experience. Quirky and creative -- remember Little Pea and Duck!-Rabbit! from reading with the kids? Here is Amy's humor and free association let loose for adults. A perfect follow-up to her Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life (which I need to re-read), this book is linked to a website and text messages which it prompts you to visit on occasion to: hear wine glass hums, submit rainbow pictures, share a story about the imminent present, listen to Amy read her vocabulary journal, and many other fun, unusual options. The text book -- get it? idea is to have the reader help generate supplementary content in a major collaborative effort. To see how Amy has done this in other ways show more look for The Beckoning of Lovely on youtube (or text it as prompted) This is an homage to creativity, art, and making a difference. Textbook has a few nods to traditional education too in how the book is arranged -- by school subject -- but Rosenthal's riffs on those topics turn traditional learning upside down. This is a "dip into" book and good for a tech savvy, non-traditional reader. Have fun! show less

This is not a textbook in the normal sense, although it does have chapters based on school subjects. Also, it involves texting. Yes, you can actually text Amy with thoughts, wishes,pictures, answers to surveys, and some of the results of earlier texts have been compiled and published here. Basically, Amy entertains us with bits and pieces of life: her observations, questions, memories, artwork, suggestions, and wordplay, almost all in unusual formatting.

My Thoughts: Amy Krouse Rosenthal's writing is clever, funny, insightful, innovative, and poignant. I just kept thinking I would love to know her and would love to experience her outside-the-box ideas spewing forth. I loved her Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life so much; I really enjoyed show more this too, but not quite as much. show less

This wasn't like reading a book. It was like sitting down for coffee with a new aquaintance who you realize will become a dear friend. Intimate, funny, thought-provoking and joy-inducing; Textbook is gentle, kind read from a lovely person. The texting aspect is fun (at least to read what other people have contributed) and I really like the community aspect of it.

Funny. I tell people I read just about anything but horror and textbooks.

Well, if this is a textbook, you can scratch textbooks from my do-not-read list.

How can I sum up this odd collection of vignettes, lists, photos, and miscellany?
Of course, it is a textbook and it's not a textbook. It's a memoir and it's not a memoir. It's a book and it's not a book. It's odd and it's regular. It's nothing and it's everything.

I give up. I can't really tell you anything about this book. I can't really tell you if you will like it or not. I will just say that I'm crazy about it, and if you like it, too, I'd love to hear from you, and so, in a Textbook-Amy-Krouse-Rosenthal-sort-of-way, feel free to text me your thoughts about this book: (281) 912-3412.

Much like [b:Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life|39872|Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life|Amy Krouse Rosenthal|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388254638s/39872.jpg|39574], this book is sweet & quirky. It feels like chatting with a friend you don't see very often, but always remember how much you like her when you do bump into her.

I mean, look at the author with her dog:



Who wouldn't want to hang out with this woman?

But notice all that white space? That's not unusual in this book. It's heavy on the cute quirkiness & pretty light on the actual content.*

Organized into "subjects" (Geography, Social Studies, Art, Science, Romance Language, History, Music, Math, Language Arts) with a Pre-assessment, Mid-term, and Final Review, like a show more textbook, this is also an interactive TEXT book, allowing you to text the author on various topics, like voting for your favorite bracket style {curly} or [straight], or contributing a self-portrait to be shared on textbookamykr.com

You get funny little moments from AKR's life:

From Geography:




From Social Studies:


Contemplations:

Also from Social Studies:


From Final Review:


There's an interesting section under Social Studies about her year-long experiment in wardrobe simplification. (She stuck with it, but didn't enjoy it.)



And then this truth bomb that I had to show my husband:



(This also applies to ice cream bars in the freezer. THROW AWAY THE EMPTY BOX, CHILDREN!)

Overall, it's an optimistic little book that's fun to read, but not life-changing.

*There are longer passages scattered throughout, but on average, I would say (not based on any actual calculations, just my overall impression) this book is 75% blank. If I had paid the $27 retail, instead of checking this out from the library, I would have been a bit peeved. show less