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The Magic of Serendipitous Reading
My heart sank when I saw the recent news that Britannica was discontinuing the print version of its encyclopedias. I understand the reasons behind the decision. I do. But I also feel like we’re losing something in saying goodbye to those clunky old volumes.
When I was a kid (Warning: I am about to expose my true nerdiness here) one of the greatest days of my childhood was the day I got to move our family’s 1966 World Book Encyclopedias into my bedroom. The youngest of four kids, I’d had access to them on the den bookshelves since before I could remember, but there was something amazing about having all that knowledge living in my bedroom, as if it might soak into me while I slept.
I was – and still am – interested in so many things. It’s one of the reasons I write such a wide variety of books. I was a frequent encyclopedia reader as a kid. I remember sitting cross-legged on the maroon carpet in front of the bookshelves, full of this weird excitement over what I might find, depending on which volume I opened. I loved all the entries about each state – how they had maps and photographs and tidbits about the state flower and state tree… the information seemed to go on forever, and that was just one entry. Just one out of a million things you might get to learn about. Just because you happened to open to that page.
We don’t do that so much any more… open to any old page. We’re more about the targeted searching, which, if you’re good at it, doesn’t result in too many random articles about gorillas showing up in your face. (Confession: I assigned myself a report on gorillas one summer because it felt weird to be obsessively researching them without some kind of project due. I announced to everyone in my family that I had a “huge research paper” due in two weeks. I was nine. It was July. To their credit, they all just nodded and wished me good luck.)
We gain many, many hours of time with our slicker, faster, nothing-left-to-chance research tools. But we lose something, too – that moment of surprise when you think you’re turning to the page that will have the population of Ghana, but whoops! Gorillas! And it turns out you need to know about gorillas. You do. So you stop and read and turn pages, and pretty soon a whole hour has gone by and you’ve started taking notes and wondering if the library has some books about them and about chimpanzees, too, while you’re at it.
Whenever I go to the public library these days, I end up touching almost everything on the “New Books” shelf, especially books that wouldn’t normally be on my look-it-up-and-sign-it-out list. And I try to sign out something that surprises me. It’s a tiny slice of the serendipity that used to rule my reading life.
Make no mistake… I am a fan of technology. I love the internet and appreciate how much easier it makes my life as an author. But a part of me longs for those glossy encyclopedia pages where you never knew what might show up along the way.
Kate Messner is a former middle school English teacher and the award-winning author of books like OVER AND UNDER THE
SNOW, THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z., EYE OF THE STORM, the MARTY MCGUIRE chapter book series, and a forthcoming July 2012 mystery, CAPTURE THE FLAG. Kate lives on Lake Champlain with her family. You can follow her on Twitter @katemessner, visit her Pinterest boards (http://pinterest.com/katemessner/) and learn more at her website: www.katemessner.com.
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Mr. Schu interviews Kate Messner today on his blog.
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I, too, was a devoted encyclopedia reader. I loved pulling a random volume off the shelf and opening to any page. I learned about things I never would have studied in school. Thank you for that walk down memory lane!
Thank you for this post and the trip down memory lane. My family had the World Books, too, and I remember many days of just grabbing S or J-K and sitting on the couch with the huge book open on my lap, just reading whatever. Learning stuff that you don’t know you don’t know is such a great way to expand your knowledge about the world.
Lovely post, Kate!
Kate, thanks for putting into words a certain something that I’ve been trying to put my finger on for a few years now. I, too am a devoted technology user and couldn’t do my job without it, but I keep thinking “but how will we find what we’re NOT looking for?” Serendepity is the perfect word: we need to find knowledge we didn’t know we needed, opinions that differ from our own and books we wouldn’t have read. Strange that for such an earth changing technology, the internet is not as good at shouting “Surprise!” as the old encyclopedias (or any shelf in any library anywhere.)
I had the an encycledia set by my bedside. Every Saturday morning I would awake and read. I drove my parents crazy as I would self diagnose a variety of diseases. Today I show students the encyclopedias and call them the Intenet of my childhood.
I agree, there’s something to be said about unexpected finds and I, too, look at the new books section whenever I am at the library. Thanks forma great post.
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I too think we’ve lost something by not being able to just read about things, not because a teacher told us too, but because we wish to. One year the librarian gave some few lessons to my students about how the library worked & I volunteered my split-in-half class two hours a week to shelve books. I wanted them to understand the idea of browsing in the library which I had noticed almost no one did. When shelving they began to say things like, look at this, I just found a book about ________. I too love the tech possibilities, but browsing in an encyclopedia or a card catalog or a library holds happy memories for me too, & that year, my students began to find things they were interested in just because they were browsing. Thanks for your memory Kate. Did you finish the gorilla project?
I’m sitting in my family room looking at my black and gold Britannica volumes. It has been years since I stopped to open a volume. Even though these books have been replaced by modern technology, I still marvel over the power of this reference tool. Thanks for bringing back fond memories. I look forward to reading your soon to be released book.
For a long time I thought I was the only one who read encyclopedias! I loved the feel of the pages, and the wonderous entries about people, places and things I could only dream about. Like many of the others, I miss those days. But my favorite phrase in teaching is “Google it” when a kid asks a question I don’t have the answer to.
Thanks Kate, for this wonderful post. I will be dating myself, but must admit my love of facts and information had it’s root in days spent with my beloved collection of Golden Book Encyclopedias. I felt so “cool” when my dad finally allowed me to read his “real encyclopedias” which he kept in the den. What you said about accidental discovery, stumbling upon Gorillas, also hit a cord. The good news is that I think we can still be pulled into that discovery whenever we visit the library or a good bookstore. Perhaps it even can happen when we use all the new technology, maybe if we stumble upon a great “link” that takes us to a topic that pulls us into learning something wonderful? I hope we always find the value in that kind of unexpected discovery.
I have found that I can lose track of time if I start “down the rabbit hole” by clicking on links once I start searching the internet for something. One thought leads to another, leads to a random link on the sidebar of a page I went to, which leads to another yet and possibly some searches. I think any research will allow you the opportunity to stumble on new information – related or not – and that’s where the serendipity starts. What we should hope is that our students and children are still open to wondering and looking for answers. (And, if using the internet, good at sniffing out which sites aren’t really reliable.)
May serendipitous reading live on!
Wow. What a beautiful look at encyclopedias. I don’t think I even realized how much I loved my family’s set until I read your post. There just is something about finding “what we’re NOT looking for” as Barb said above. Thanks for the nostalgia!
Now, how do we make this experience exist for us and our kids again. . .?
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I like this post for so many reasons. Especially the parenthetical “confessions”. I wasn’t this kind of kid, but I wish I was.
I loved reading encyclopedias when I was a kid. We had a nice red set of World Book Encyclopedias in the bookcase, and I would sit on the floor and just read. I loved looking at the pictures of fascinating places in the world, vowing to visit them one day. Thanks for reminding of those childhood days.
Like you and so many others, I loved, loved, loved the World Book as a child. I especially remember the magic of the “transparency” pages, about the human body. So amazing, how you could turn a page and see the muscles, then add another layer and see all the veins and capillaries. Thanks for bringing this back to me!
There was something so satisfying about having those books at our finger tips. I too remember just flipping through the pages and finding something that caught my eye and learning something new. I need to check with my parents if they still have our 197? World Books. I want them.
Wow. So many other encyclopedia readers! I had no idea I wasn’t alone. I spent hours upon hours looking up different historical figures, mythological gods/goddesses, and scientific theories. I even had whole marble composition books filled with the Greek/Roman/Celtic/Norse mythological elements. I still to this day begin reading about something random on Wikipedia and find myself zoning out for hours looking up everything I possibly can that relates to the subject. How I loved those days….R.I.P. Chunky Encyclopedias.
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