Childraft

The older you get, the more you witness the world changing. Wow, the world has changed in my 36 years. I think the biggest change was brought about by the internet. We used to spend hours in libraries researching topics through books, magazines, microfiche (darn right, baby!), assembling bibliographies, footnotes, citing references, and using the now antiquated library card catalog system (do they even have those anymore?). The library was daunting to me. Being quiet was never a problem for me, but I became quickly bored in there. I couldn’t stand to sit and read endless excerpts in hopes of finding that perfect quote or perfect info. I never studied well—I don’t still well unless it’s something I’m just very “into”.

When I was a child, we had a full set of encyclopedias at home, and a full set of the Childcraft How & Why Library. The Encyclopedias were not very modern by the time I reached high school. But those Childcraft books were awesome. For years, we perused them. One book had nothing but poems and riddles. One book, my favorite, was a book on making things like paper hats and paper sail boats. Lots of crafts to keep a creative child busy. It was my personal volume of self entertainment.

My sister reminded me of those the other day. Somewhere along the line, they were sold or donated or even trashed. I don’t know their fate. But they were awesome. And I see they are still in publication.

Their price tag these days is rather high, but I can’t help but think on the amazing usefulness. Maybe when my niece gets a little older, I will invest in a set of them for her to play with.