With it being back to school time, I'd like for all of you '90s kids to think back at a lot of the course materials you used while you were studying, doing homework, and hoping you'd be getting A's.

During elementary school, my English classes would use books from the Houghton Mifflin Literary Readers series, each with a color-coded cover featuring a black border with an fish inside a circle. The first grade book included short stories such as "The Little Red Hen", "The Great Big Enormous Turnip", "Doghouse for Sale", "Clyde Monster", "My Dog and the Key Mystery", and "Ira Sleeps Over". The books were richly illustrated with colorful drawings that helped to provide more clarity to the action going on as well. They were published in 1989, but used them throughout my time in elementary school in the early-mid 1990s. The same company also produced the "Beginning to Read" series for kindergarten.

So, what were your textbooks that your teacher was using while you were growing up?

When I was in elementary school, especially the third grade, we use a book in English class called “10 times around.” This book has several short stories that were appropriate for our reading level, unfortunately I don’t remember what all of them were called. But, yeah I remember they had a lot of vivid pictures in them that added to the story.

I used many of them, from the middle of elementary school all the way into college. (I was in 4th grade when the decade began, and in my second year of college when the decade ended.) Too numerous to mention... but I do remember that many of them (especially in middle and high school) were very old at the time my class(es) used them.

When I was in 6th grade(1991-1992), our Social Studies book was called "The World". I remember it well. It was mainly about history and what was then current events.

When I was in 6th grade(1991-1992), our Social Studies book was called "The World". I remember it well. It was mainly about history and what was then current events.


Yeah, my seventh grade world studies book (1996) was called "Our Human Heritage," and it's contents were similar. For example, it covered ancient history through wwII as well as a chapter on the fall of the USSR.

Yeah, my seventh grade world studies book (1996) was called "Our Human Heritage," and it's contents were similar. For example, it covered ancient history through wwII as well as a chapter on the fall of the USSR.


I remember that textbook. But for us it was 6th grade.

Yeah, my seventh grade world studies book (1996) was called "Our Human Heritage," and it's contents were similar. For example, it covered ancient history through wwII as well as a chapter on the fall of the USSR.

On a similar note... I started my junior year of high school that year, and for my U.S. History class, the textbook we used went up through 1993, the year that Bill Clinton became President. So the book was still fairly new at the time I used it. The majority of what my class studied, however, covered the early to mid 20th century (to about the 1960s).