For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for October 10, 2015

Now-a-days, the Google Encyclopedia doesn’t do a good job pressing leaves.

I wonder if most kids even know what a hard copy encyclopedia is. Many years ago, our Aunt (who had been a teacher) bought us a World Book, and each year it sent us a supplement. Imagine waiting a whole year for information updates now…

Can’t do THAT with the internet. Now a laptop, well, not so many at once anyhow.

Dear old dad got mad because I kept using our encyclopedia set and put a lot of wear and tear on their covers. Hey, dad, what do you think those books are for, decoration?

Loved the World Book Encyclopedia with those yearly updates. Also, there was a volume that had green pages in the back of it with other things….the big one I remember was vocabulary tests ….from grade one through 12, I believe. My brother and I used to test ourselves and we learned a lot of new (and big/fancy) words from this. The one I remember most that my brother liked to throw around was: a·me·lio·rateəˈmēlyəˌrāt/Submitverbmake (something bad or unsatisfactory) better. -————-I’ll bet kids are not searching out vocabulary tests on google.

I used to do that too…no need to get mad, just let them have fun

My parents bought a set of encyclopedias. I did browse through them from time to time, and look at the yearly update when they came in. But if I think of how many times I actually used them for say school work, it was probably just a couple of times. I think the same was true for my brothers and sister. It was a lot of money for not too much gain.It would been better just to go to the library every once in a while, which we actually did.

I used to read Encyclopedia Britannica for fun in the 4th grade, and by the 7th grade I got a slightly higher score on a comprehensive vocabulary test than my English teacher did!

That almost sounds like a vacation: a weekend alone with a stack of Encyclopedias, no noise, no interruptions.

i didn’t pay all that much for my Britannicas: I bought mine at a thrift shop.

We had a Funk & Wagnals encyclopedia set when I lived in Germany. There were no libraries nearby except for the one at school—and come to think of it, I don’t recall ever stepping into that one—so all of our school research came from those books. Once back in the States, libraries were more accessible and those books moldered away in the basement. We finally got rid of them after my dad passed away.

I loved my World Books and consulted them almost every day about something. The Internet is easier Now I’m up to about 10 times a day of short research. Putting the fall leaves between pieces of wax paper and ironing them works better.

add me to the list of odd little children who read encyclopedias for fun…but we also pressed leaves in them. Humor is best when you can relate to it.

Anyone remember “The Childrens Encyclopedia” also known as “The Books of Knowledge”? I had a complete set when I was a kid, no idea where they came from or what happened to them, probably passed on to a cousin. I’d love to see them again though.

Maybe they could loan some of the leaves to Calvin…?

We had a set bought in the ’50s. I doubt my mother even dusted them off, nor did anyone look in them. I always thought that my dad was a sucker for falling for some line from the door-to-door salesman who sold them to him. We were poor, and he bought useless books? My sister and I used the library for school work. For the usual obvious reasons.

My parents bought me a set each of World Book, Book of Knowledge, Lands and People, and the Book of Popular Science. I only used World Book and the Book of Popular Science, I found the Book of Knowledge and Lands and Peoples too hard, and too dry to use.

Lynn’s Notes:

We once owned the full set of The Encyclopaedia Britannica. I bought this enormous set of books when we lived in tiny Lynn Lake, Manitoba. It was an arctic community into which you really had to fly. At the time, the population wasn’t much more than 1200. There was only one radio station, there was no library, and the newspaper came a day late. Other than folks selling things like Avon, there were no door-to-door salespeople…it was just too far to go! When a young Britannica salesman came to our door, I was surprised. I invited him in. I had been thinking that in this area some encyclopaedias would be a great investment. He started to rattle off his pitch, but I stopped him and said it was OK! I was going to buy the whole set! He looked me in the eye in absolute disbelief. “Lady,” he said, “I have flown to just about every small community in northern Manitoba, and you are my very first sale!”

My parents had a set of Encyclopedias with the annual updates, I don’t remember which one, though. I suspect that they bought it because it came with a custom coffee table that contained them. The set also included a 16 volume of children’s stories called “The Children’s Hour” that we wore out. Those books are where I learned to love Edgar Allen Poe, Science Fiction, poetry and reading in general.

We had a set of encyclopedias at home, but since they covered so many subjects, they seemed so limited in what they could say about each..We went to the local library at least once a week, usually more often. Mom would pile us in the car and drive us. Later, we walked there after school..I remember the day I got my first library card. I was four and had just learned to print my name, the only requirement to have your own library card..At the time, the library was in a room behind the local hardware store- up a short flight of stairs. To my mother’s embarrassment, I dropped my new card into a crack between the stairway banister and the wall. . Wherever she lived, our mother always supported the local libraries. She was still working as a library volunteer in the last year of her life – at 93.

Anyone remember the Volumn Encyclopedia? One book, nearly a foot thick!Also the World Book – 1929 from a school sale. Wasn’t much help when I got into electronics in the mid 50s!

Use desk-size blotters for pressing plants. I have long contended that What’s My Line could be a parlor game by adding full or part time and age worked. My favorite would be “sewing plants onto cardboard”. Sewing was reinforcement and it was done establishing the herbarium at SMU. We worked in the science building attic while listening to the Metropolitan Opera on radio. A special experience all around! Unfortunately, there are no parlor games today, just a bunch of people with their heads buried in electronic devices.

Now they’re obsolete. In Newton, a subdivision of Surrey B.C., an artist made a small building using encyclopedias. https://www.facebook.com/FriendsOfTheGrove/photos/a.481477278620850.1073741828.481059528662625/732826353485940/?type=3&theater

Andrew Carnegie used millions of his own money to build libraries in communities that were too poor to commission a public library. The concept was the same. Anyone who wanted a library card got one. It was interesting to find this out, as the contemporary view today is to slander Carnegie and other industrialists.