The Big Fat Notebook, middle school education they’ll want to read

Imagine if you put a Wimpy Kid book and a summary of middle school education-by their individual subjects in a magic blender. The result would be a book from The Big Fat Notebook series.  This is an immediately accessible book that serves as a refresher to anyone outside of middle school or a study guide for those in the thick of it.

This is a book that manages to dance between education and entertaining with such deftness you’ll all but want to go back in time to re-learn your respective classes. There is a Big Fat Notebook for World History, American History, English, Math and Science. We looked at The Big Fat Notebook for Science and it made us realize that we certainly weren’t as smart as a middle school student, yet.

When I first looked at the book it was as a true paradigm shift. This can’t be what middle school students learn, can it? Sure the facts and text looked like things I once knew, but most of these pages more closely resemble alien messages than the basics of education.

After reading a chapter or two from the beginning it all made sense and was much more familiar. The concepts at least no longer felt Klingon; they simply use the proper terminology or are actions that adults don’t need to use, so they fell down the memory hole.

Our kids however don’t know that they may not need to know these things in the future. The science book for example has lots of things that a middle school student might squirm at learning. Of course, parents know that science, regardless of what profession our kids want to enter in invaluable. Science put the “S” in STEM and can be incredibly fun when presented in the correct format.

The Big Fat Notebook is fun. It’s still education, but the loose vibe of the book with its drawings and layout will keep kids at ease. The questions at the end of each chapter are printed on graph paper; the majority of the text is on ‘notebook’ paper, a la, Wimpy Kid. Each unit breaks down major concepts into small chapters and has a different colored code in the bottom right. This gives kids a nice visual queue as to how many pages are left in the current chapter.

Another factor that makes these books approachable is its cover is soft and bendable. It’s too thick to fit in your back pocket, but being able to bend it distinguishes the book from its more studious counterparts, with the same information.  The Big Fat Notebook series is from the folks who do Brain Quest and has many of their hallmark traits. I’m fun, take me anywhere, read me and don’t be scared to write in me, it seems to say. It is-and students will. This is a series that’ll serve anyone needing a recap of middle school subjects very well and teach them in the process.