Memory is an elusive, enigmatic tool. Why do you remember some things and don’t remember others? I personally think your memory is connected to your senses.

I once went to a workshop on how you teach poetry to children, and the first thing the instructor did was bring out a bottle of Johnson’s Baby Powder and had us smell its distinctive aroma. And you know what happened? All of a sudden, an image of my first bedroom popped in my head. Then an image of my pre-school classroom surfaced in the pool of my memory. The instructor immediately told us that the olfactory nerve, the pathway that connects the nose to the brain passes right by the section that controls the memory.

Well, the teacher had to wrestle the bottles of baby powder from these middle-aged, serious English  teachers because they were "getting high" off of the Johnson's baby powder. You should have seen her running down the halls chasing after this one woman. Naw, just kidding That really didn't happen. At least everything I just mentioned in this paragraph. Pardon the flight of fancy. Samuel Taylor Coleridge would have been proud.

 What does this have to do with studying for school or the SAT?

 Well, have you tried to look at a list of words and tried to memorize them. Ain’t easy, is it? (By the way, I’m from the South, and I can get away with the word “ain’t.”)

Didn’t you have better luck when you wrote the words down a few times?

 How many of you parents out there, in preparation for an exam, would go over your notes and distill them into a series of the most important ideas? The key concept her eis that you are “interacting” with the information in some way.

 So, the good people at Kaplan have hit upon a pretty good idea.

 They have created vocabulary cartoon books. Let’s look at the page that is devoted to the word “ebullience.” First, you have the word and its definition which is “enthusiastic; or bubbling with excitement.”  Then you have a LINK with the phrase BULL DANCE and then a cartoon of two bulls ebulliently dancing.

 See how the senses are brought into play? You have an image and a sound “bull dance” connected to the definition. Quite clever, don’t you think?

Again, I think you have to read, read, and read again to expand your vocabulary. But I don’t think that you would be wasting your time if you read this book. Plus, the drawings are pretty funny, and I’ve always believed that students of all ages learn more when they relax and have fun.