Cam can read faster than it can talk; he says "thanks" and flips through its pages.
The required technical vocabulary is provided. There are no obscure special materials, like there are for some of the more difficult spells in later chapters. All Cam needs is a pile of books, enough paper to wrap them in, a writing utensil, and his voice.
Can he combine the notebooks with the manual, make the manual look like a spiral notebook...?
He goes and gets some Christmas wrapping paper to wrap all his notebooks up, and then reads the details of the spell.
It's a simple enough procedure: assemble, using the provided vocabulary and structure, a spell description that names each of the books and asserts that they will be collected into a single volume with the desired properties. Write the spell on the paper. Wrap the books in the paper. Speak the spell out loud.
Cam goes through a couple drafts - on looseleaf, since he needs to put his current notebook in the group - before he and his chorus of notebooks are satisfied with the designed end result. He copies it onto the silver-snowflake Christmas paper, stacks the notebooks, wraps the Christmas paper around and cuts it off the roll, and then, carefully and rhythmically, reads through his spell.
"No," says the notebook. "Or, rather, yes if it's convenient."
"Gracenote," suggests Cam idly. "Grace for short. I'll probably wind up she-ing you."
"That's fine by me," says Grace contently.
"Awesome." And he flips to the "end", where are all his magic notes quite intact, and resumes studying magic.
The manual has plenty more to tell him. And since he can talk to it now, it obeys direct requests for more information by expanding the sections that interest him or advising him on which page to turn to for a particular subject. Naturally, these page numbers are not going to remain constant, but they stay put long enough to be useful.
"Will little post-it note flags stay put in you or should I just navigate by talking?" Cam asks the manual. "Also, should I name you too, or do you come with a name, or are you just named your title, or what?"
He focuses on learning the language for now. Figuring out what to do with it will be more amenable to multitasking; he can do that while he half pays attention to English class.
He is irritated about having to leave off when Renée calls him down to dinner, and he takes Grace with him, though he doesn't try to write in it at the dinner table. He tells Renée that he found a really cool book at the library and that it is about wizards. She draws the obvious, incorrect conclusion. He lets her.
He brings the manual to school with him and manages not to break it out till lunchtime.
Speaking of minds, can Cam improve his own? Maybe tack on a clause at the end of his ridiculous long "name" about how also, has a perfect memory and thinks ten times faster than the next candidate down?
A lot of the personal amusement and some of the instrumental value involves attaching superpowers to himself, is that just generally going to fall into not-sooner?
Yes. There are no preset spells for acquiring superpowers, although there are spells that let him mimic them in various ways - walk on air by making it solid under his feet, repel injury by warding his person against physical harm, breathe underwater by creating a magical air filter. Most of them are not meant for long-term use, even the ones that are focused on him instead of his environment; the personal wards are the most durable out of all of them.
At least Speech seems amenable to creating magical tools. There's Grace, who's awesome - and, it occurs to him, manages to sound like a girl because she's speaking with the voice he had before it dropped; they don't actually match anymore but she still feels himself-y when she talks; he might have to rename her if hers decides to crack and fall too. Maybe he could offload his processing wants onto a computer, if he had his own computer. (He should have his own computer. Maybe if he asks for nothing else on his birthday. Or can he just talk a computer into existing from scratch?)
Well, hm. Will things other than books talk to him? Maybe he can buy an ambitious broken computer for cheap from somebody, have it tell him what it wants to be when it grows up, and Speechify it so.
...Okay, wait just one second, does talking to things make them smarter, or does he need to start figuring out how to live on fruit and ethically farmed eggs and dairy?