General Knowledge Books for Adults?

[ilovemygirl]

Does anyone have any recommendations for refresher or general knowledge books for parents? Not how to teach books or planners but sort of a book to remind me of the details of history, music, language, etc. so when dd asks me why I comes before E or when and where a particular event in history happened, I can explain it with some sort of confidence/intelligence.

[lach]

The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy is great for that. It's dictionary-style (arranged by general subject) so it's not something that you read straight through, but it basically has everything you need to know about everything.

There's a kids version too, but it's mainly for upper elementary, maybe even middle school, kids. It's at a fairly high reading and subject level.

[AAK]

Originally Posted by lach

The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy is great for that. It's dictionary-style (arranged by general subject) so it's not something that you read straight through, but it basically has everything you need to know about everything.

There's a kids version too, but it's mainly for upper elementary, maybe even middle school, kids. It's at a fairly high reading and subject level.

If you want a single book to do what you asked--the Cultural Literacy book is the one you want. We actually just have the kid's edition. I used the adult version from the library, but bought the kid's for home. It also makes a fun intro to a subject. For example: we looked up the Civil War, read that entry and then looked up each "see also" heading and kept doing that until we ran out. It felt more like a scavenger hunt than a history lesson.

If you are really more concerned about things like your "I before E" example, you might look at the book "Abcs and all their tricks" or the resources from here: http://www.avko.org/freebies.htm

Amy