When I was in second grade, spelling was a subject in school, and we had an actual spelling text book. I went to public school, so we borrowed our text books for the year instead of buying them. Borrowed books must be covered in the Sunday comics (for they are in color), or in an inside out brown paper grocery bag (for you can doodle on those). Kid rules + school rules. Being both a doodler, and a klutz who probably couldn’t make newsprint last for a full school year, I went paper bag style.
I was especially proud of my tape mastery in second grade, and my books were like, perfectly covered. All I needed to do was label them. My mom let me borrow her special permanent (!) magic marker, and in my best pen I wrote on the front cover of my spelling book:
“Speeling.”
[...] textbooks and I go way back, all the way to my speeling book in 2nd grade. These days, the textbook division is merged with McGraw Hill, but Macmillan still publishes [...]