For those who were lucky to grow up with an encyclopedia library in the house...
We may have grown up in a modest manner, but the one thing my dad did for us was buy us a Children's Britannica encyclopedia. These are my memories of browsing through its pages:
The cellophane pages were my favorite. It was an anatomical "dissection" of the human body. One for the man and the other for a woman. You would be able to see the layers of the human anatomy as you turned the pages. Pretty cool, but without an adult there to explain the importance of the lesser known organs, I really didn't learn much more beyond the well-known heart, lungs, kidneys and digestive tract.
The other favorite were Greek and Roman mythology. Again, the negative was that I didn't differentiate between the two. Not until much later did I realize they had different names for similar gods. But I would read each "definition" as a mini-story.
The constellations may have also piqued my interest, but I never was able to identify anything else beyond the big and little dippers.
Sadly, I don't remember more than that, except to enjoy the smell of the crisp pages of the books and remembering the "cracK" sound when the books were first opened.
Anyone else have similar memories?
= new reply since forum marked as read
along with the Childcraft books. My parents faithfully bought the annual book. We also had the Funk and Wagnall encyclopedias. My brother took all of it when we were clearing out the house after my Mom died last summer. He is the only one of us with kids/grandkids. I think we had the annual world books from 1963-2004 (the year my Dad died).
I have always loved to read. I remember reading about constellations , Africa, ancient Egypt, etc. Our family rarely went on vacations, but reading took me to many places. 
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From your description, sounds like a great dad in hiding 
I wish we had kept the WB. I learned many of the constellations from them. The line drawings that accompany the constellations differ from one source to another, and some of them look really improbable. I still regard the ones I saw in WB as the "real" versions.
If you want to add a constellation, go for Orion. That and Ursa Major (which contains the Big Dipper) are the two brightest constellations. Once you find Orion, the 'horns' and baleful red 'eye' of neighboring Taurus (home of the naked-eye cluster The Pleiades*) are obvious. And once you know how to find Polaris (the tail of the LD) it's easy to find the 'W' of Cassiopeia (rich in star clusters w/good binoculars). From there, you can keep adding ...
https://www.space.com/3953-arc-arcturus-speed-spica.html
*Known in Japan as Subaru. The carmaker Subaru's logo is six stars, after the cluster.
Best viewing is in Jan and Feb.
The "hourglass" in the middle of Orion is actually more obvious than in the star charts because the stars in it are so bright -- and Sirius, part of Canis Major, one of Orion's hunting dogs down by his heels, is the brightest star in the sky. BTW, the three bright stars in Orion's belt are almost on the Equator, which helps get you oriented. If you can locate Orion's belt and Polaris, you can find your way to any point on the map which is above the horizon !
(Oh, and if you've got binoculars or a telephoto lens, try peering at the tip of Orion's sword -- that's the famous Orion Nebula. Looks like green fog at low magnification.)
The Child Craft were old, 1949 edition I believe. I ended up finding the entire set on Ebay and bought it because of my intense reactions to memories from them. Especially the Poems and Rhymes with the 9 pictures of animals and a couple of scenes on the front. The illustrations in that book were phenomenal. I never forgot them and now I don't have to.
I remember spending days looking at the World Books too. I remember the negotiation my parents had about even spending the money, we had so little but they did and we spent hours with them.
Still, it is the Child Craft I remember the most. When my set arrived at my home as an adult I spent hours with them but mostly it was the illustrations in the Poem book. I keep it under my bed so I can look at it. I spent so much time with it as a kid. Always music and art for me. Always. Thank you for this post, it makes me feel good on a not so terrific day. 
I will have to look at the list in mine. I do not remember who they all were.
I felt better and made it to the performance of Nutcracker and played well. Hard to do all that feeling crappy. Thanks!
There are a lot of good people here, thanks for being one of them.
to people at this time of the year.
and high school science projects and the dreaded reports we had to do. Sure beats going to the library every time I needed to know something. 
When the trolls are active hourly supplements are necessary.
I have about 30 weeks of these so far...
It’s tough because you can just about fit one copy into a truck.
Then you have to convince them to build a room for it.
vocabulary than the impeached one. 
My cell ring tone. It showed up in the newer Blade Runner and really brought me back.
My dad was a fan of the Tijuana Brass.
We're we separated at birth? LOL
I remember what you are describing!
I remember when the salesman came to the house. I was the eldest of five, just starting 7th grade, and Dad felt they were a good investment. While I don't know whether or not my brothers ever used them, I did many, many times what others here have also done: pick one at random and get lost in it.
I was a bookworm anyway, but the World Book helped me overcome my fear of snakes, sharpened my love of all things "sciencey," and introduced me to natural wonders previously unheard of and cultures unimagined. I spent many happy hours exploring the world in those volumes.
Dad was right; they were a great investment! 
I can remember COUNTLESS times going to their home and reading the encyclopedia's for hours and hours.
But when I was quite young there was a kind of kids' encyclopedia that we used to get one volume after another, think they were available a volume a week at the grocery store. There were two sets, the second set was for slightly older kids. I remember reading those when we got them each week. I'll have to ask my brother, he'll likely remember.
