How Can I Remember All That? – Book Review

“How Can I Remember All That?”

by Dr. Tracy Packiam Alloway, illustrated by David O’Connell
Publishers: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Dr Tracy Packiam Alloway is an award-winning psychologist, professor, author and TEDx speaker. She navigates through over a decade’s worth of knowledge on memory to present a concise but informative guide on improving/ recognising poor working memory that educates on a level for both children and adults.

Personally, I believe the use of an illustrated child-like character, aka ‘Tommy’, is genius! It allows for children, in particular, to relate to his strengths and weaknesses, therefore providing a greater insight for parents into their child’s viewpoint. This is also reinforced with divided parent/child reading sections that are shown through the use of different fonts, hence this provides a gateway into the discussion of memory difficulty between parent and child.

A key aspect of this book that makes it stand out is the accessible tips and tricks e.g. eating dark chocolate, that can massively aid the working memory of any individual. I also appreciate how they explain why these small daily changes work as it allows for a better understanding as to why you should carry them out.

I would highly recommend this book as its natural flow is maintained through the addition of ‘try along’ memory activities that not only support the tips and tricks within this book, but also prevents boredom from building up!

Finally, I believe this book would really comfort children who are struggling with working memory difficulty as it’s uplifting nature really encourages children to keep trying with the areas they struggles in.