Category: Children

The Ready To Read book series is one of the most easily identifiable line ups for kids who level up their reading. They consist of five levels that range from sight words to chapters that deal with challenging vocabulary levels, as well as, character development. Flashback to the….. Awesome ‘80s! is a level two book that puts it in the Superstar Reader! category. Most nine-year olds will be able to Flashback to the…. Awesome ‘80s! with ease. Some eight-year olds will be able to read the book with assistance. There’ll be a couple of first graders who will open the book, curious to see what sight words they can wrangle from the text. Any elementary school student will be attracted to the book. They’ll giggle at the fashion, marvel at the brick, and try to fathom a time when all children’s television programming was only available on Saturday morning.

Yes, mom and dad are weird and grew up in a time that was much closer to the dinosaurs than you’re growing up. Now you have a book that you early elementary-aged kids can read, all the while, mocking your parents for not have a mobile computer in their shirt pocket. The only radio that you had was a massive, grey box that weighed about 13 pounds. It could play the radio, but couldn’t stream anything and was only able to play mix tapes.

Yeah, but we also had the Sony Walkman, which was a portable way to play those cassette tapes in a way to where only we could hear them. Of course, there were some off-brand portable cassette players that were similar to them, but quite different. Our off-brand Walkman couldn’t rewind, so if we wanted to repeat a song for friends then we had to flip the tap over, fast forward, and then guess as to where our new favorite song started.

Thankfully, for today’s elementary school readers, there’s a glossary of terms used in Flashback to the….. Awesome ’80s! That 13 pound weight was also called a boom box. The device that answered our phone was an answering machine. Rad was what kids used to say when something was worse than mid. Mid, you kids today know all about that, don’t you? While we’re revisiting the 80’s, let me suggest that the mullet be one of the things that we leave back there, even though it breaks my achy breaky heart.

There are three chapters of glorious 80’s throwbacks that will make kids laugh out loud and shake their heads in disbelief. Yes, we were that lame, that gloriously, shoulder-padded, video game controller that wasn’t wireless, floppy disc having, neon colors aplenty lame. It’s a Ready to Read book that wallows in the fun, slaps color patterns that make parents grin out of remembrance to the days when movies weren’t all remakes or created using CGI.

Flashback to the…… Awesome ‘80s! is elementary school water cooler fun that has the ‘it’ factor. Those young ages will share the book, howl with laughter at the thought of their parents having such things, and then hide in the corner when their parents actually have the real deal in their basement. This is where it’s important to distinguish between collecting memorabilia and having too much stuff. If I have one rotary telephone it’s  being quirky and not hoarding. Granted, this could also qualify as office supplies or background details for Youtube, but now it just sounds like I’m making excuses for my messy office…..back to the book.

This book series is dependably great and Flashback to the….. Awesome ’80! is the sort of LOL book that younger kids will want to read. Those kids who can read it easily will do so and have conversations about how great it is now when compared to when you grew up. While they do that, you can start earmarking all of the touchstones that today’s kids have that will seem archaic and quaint in 40 years.

Flashback to the….. Awesome ‘80s! is in the Ready-to-Read book series and is available from Simon Spotlight, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

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