School books you remember

Hmm my post vanished???

Anyway I was saying I remembered a book I borrowed from the school library about 1960 called Kemlo and the Space Lanes Not seen it since, a sci fi novel and the first I ever read.

I still have a book called Kemlo and the Gravity Rays (about the same age)

I recall more about a certain incident surrounding the first book I read at secondary school than the actual book itself. The book was a collection of short stories as part of the English literature class and the teacher would walk up and down the classroom reading aloud a story from the book.

Now the idea was that we were all to read silently along with him and when he finished it would be a quick round of Q & A's to make sure everyone was paying attention. Like any class of 13 year olds (or any age group for that matter) there was quite a variety of characters and we had one real dopey lad who just seemed to understand nothing and spent most of his time daydreaming. In contrast we had the class joker who was a laugh a minute.

This particular day the teacher was reading a story about a young lad going fishing at the river and how he got his rod, hooks, dug worms and put them in a tin, put on his wellies and got his rod etc etc etc and ended with him catching a trout. When the teacher finished reading he shouted "what did the young lad use as bait to catch the trout" and looking around the class he shouted "Mr Dopey" (Im just referring to him as that so as not to post his real name)

Mr Dopey upon hearing his name being called out managed to awake from his daydream but hadnt a clue as to what question was asked. Unfortunately he was sitting at a desk directly in front of the class joker who stretched out a leg under the desk, kicked him in the ankles, leaned forward and whispered to him..."a cow, that's the answer, a cow"

So Mr Dopey puts his hand in the air and says "please sir, it was a cow"

Needless to say the place erupted

"Latin for Today". Yes, I know, dead language, etc., but between those stern, matt black covers were all of the answers that our male teacher-in-a-long-black-maxi-dress could throw at us. Shortly after I discovered that he built every Latin class around Latin for Today, I became best in Latin class because I could find the answers before he became violent.

I still admire Latin for its "Lego-like" simplicity, all but lost by "modern" European languages. However, I've never figured out how those ingenious / barbaric Romans managed to calculate how many tiles they would need to cover a floor measuring, say, XXIV sandals by XIII sandals.

The only book that springs to mind was "New Vista in English" which was used in my first year after doing the primary
It seemed that the stories in it were so much more grown up at the time a vast change from the simpler stuff that we used to before then and when MISS read them it seemed sooooo much better as she strolled up and down between the lines of us youngfellas who were just beginning to appreciate the female form

CUCINA wrote: »

I still have a book from my secondary school days, "Exploring English Prose". I re-discovered it last year and so decided to browse through it for a few minutes. An hour and a half later (!) and so many memories...
We had a teacher, Mr. Henfy, for whom we had more respect than any of the other teachers. I remember he used to say to us, "I'll Frazierise ya" if we didn't do our homework or whatever (this was around the time of the Frazier/Ali fight).
Anyway, getting back to the book, one of my favourite pieces was "Down With Pigeons" by Robert Benchley, very amusing. Another was "The Gettysburg Address" by some obscure person by the name of Abraham Lincoln.
Then there was "A Dissertation on Roast Pig" by Charles Lamb, and Stephen Leacock's talking about "a certain piece of work" by those industrious blokes, A, B, and C.
Anyone else remember this book?

I remember those books well, they were and still are a great read. Exploring English 1, 2 and 3......Poetry, Short Stories and Prose. (possibly not in that order)

My mother threw them out when I finished school but I found them in a car boot sale (25 odd years later!). It was lovely to see one of them reprinted.

I still remember the "Dissertation" by Lamb........and The Lady of Shallot....

I loved my English teacher, God Rest her......She read them as they were meant to be read - with wonderful aplomb and character.......:)

Molly007 wrote: »

Yea I remember the "dissertation" too- I think that was on the course for several years. It was a classic! And a poem which started "A naked house, a naked moor, A shivering pool before the door" and also "Morte d'Arthur". Lovely memories. But it was the books themselves with all the little diagrams and dates and initials and hearts that I wish I had now !

The House Beautiful, by Robert Louis Stephenson.

Most people (well,me) seem to remember the next bit better:

Yet shall your ragged moors receive
The incomparable pomp of eve

On the subject of schoolbooks there was a strange thing happened in our school on entering secondary.

Since French was a first year subject, we were told we had to buy a big red (expensive)hardback called "Ecouter et Parler". There was another French book to get as well.

Thing is,Ecouter et Parler was in French and Irish, the other book was French and English.

Significantly, the school had recently changed over from teaching through Irish to teaching in English.

We never,ever,used the Ecouter et Parler book.

That book of english prose for the inter, one story about the man who invented a way of making diamonds and Robert L. Stevens on why humans don't value life

Only burnt one school book, it was therapeutic

Anyone else remember "Ann and Barry"

"Soundings" was my poetry book for LC English. A very long time ago. I can still recall snippets of it though Emily Dickinson`s "Because I could not stop for death/Death kindly stopped for me" Keats(?) "Xanadu" and TS Eliot`s "Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock" come to mind.

Like the Exploring English series, Soundings has been reprinted too. I can`t bring myself to buy it though, for fear I may not enjoy it now, as much as I did back then.

Dare I mention "Péig"? Or "Dialann Deoraí"?

PEIG oh no I'm not going to get much sleep tonight. I am pschologically scarred by that blasted woman. Funnily enough I was at a party in a friends house on Saturday and somehow Peig came up in conversation. In a group of about 10 mature adults all of us shuddered at the thought of that book.

It is amazing how one book due probably to bad teaching of its contents has had such a negative effect on so many people.

That's amazing Jellybaby I too memorized 'To Daffodils' and it is the only poem that I know by heart.

"Fair daffodils we weep to see you haste away so soon............"

Something about it struck a chord with me as well as poetry was never 'my thing'.

That Soundings book looks like its in mint condition. Was it really on the curriculum since 1969? I recall it from the late `70s.

And is that actually a first edition of the book?

M'asal beag dubh by Paidin Mhearach and Sceal Sheanagh?