I was surfing the web for old books and stumbled upon these children’s science books from my youth. Oh my, I had a dozen of these they really bring back memories. Did anyone else read any of these and what were your impressions.
I totally forgot about these! I had dozens, '60s editions.
Read the things till the letters fell off the page. 
At this point I think of them as the Reader’s Digest of legit educational books, but to be clear: I fucking loved those books. My mom musta bought me 2 - 3 dozen of them and I memorized them.
I can draw a straight line from them to the Straight Dope.
Oh. My. God. I freakin’ adored these!!! I had the 1960s versions of: #5001 (Dinosaurs), #5003 (Electricity), and #5004 (Rocks). Maybe some more but none of the others look familiar. They must’ve been inherited from my oldest sister (who’s ten years my senior), because I wasn’t really reading until around 1969/70.
But in looking over the titles, I have a dumb question: What in heaven’s name is Ballet doing there?! (I’m not gonna say anything about the Old Testament, because at least that’s sorta kinda history – well, at least, maybe the angle was looking for some kind of archeological proof that the OT events occured.) But ballet? I’d understand if they’d already published like 30 editions and were running out of ideas, but the ballet book came before books on chemistry, light, sound, robots… What an odd decision.
Now did anyone of the same age group have the Time/Life series on science? My favorite was on Sight/Vision/Light. Started my interest in optical illusions, that did.
We also had the Time/Life books. All over the place. I had a real thing for any kind of reference/science/general info books.
Wow! These bring back memories.
I know I had 5004 Rocks and Minerals, 5013 The Human Body, 5016 The Microscope, 5030 Ants and Bees, 5037 Butterflies and Moths, and 5054 Oceanography. A lot more look very familiar.
I haven’t thought about these in decades.
Heh. Me too. Right now I’m looking at my bookshelves, where the entire ridiculously outdated World Book Encyclopedia from 1963 proudly sits. I used to read each volume cover to cover as a kid. For that matter, I also have my family’s old globe from the 1950s. It’s amazing the changes that time has wrought on the earth, just as far as country/territory names and so on.
Unfortuantely, I don’t have any of the How and Why books. 
But thank you very much, Icerigger, for reminding us of them!
Oh yeah! The How and Why books were a formative part of my childhood. I definitely remember Dinosaurs, Insects, Reptiles & Amphibians, Rocks & Minerals, and Ants & Bees. Primitive Man and Prehistoric Mammals look familiar, and I must have had Butterflies & Moths, too, but I don’t recognize the cover. Maybe some others. The back covers were the second version shown (“Classic”).
I definitely had the Dinosaur book and the Castles book.
I think I had the Robots and electronic brains book too, or at least something similar. Here’s a page that I remember.
I think my sister had the horses book. The covers of Primitive Man and Wild animals seem to ring a bell.
The How and Why books were my bible as a youngster. WoW!
Thanks for the memory!
Oh, yes, I loved those books! They had a spot on my bookshelf right next to the Golden Book Encyclopedias, which arrived at the local supermarket, one volume per week. How many little kids look forward eagerly to grocery shopping?!
The volume titles of the GBE contained some wonderful unintentional (?) humor. “Navy to Parasites?” Only with lack of maintenance. 
I had a few too (70’s). The ones that I had were read and re-read. I particularly remember The First World War and Electronics. I probably also had Science Experiments and Robots and Electronic Brains. Some of the covers are familiar from being displayed within the books or on the back cover, if I recall.
Dinpsaurs, Rocks and Minerals, Insects, Reptiles, Sea Shells, Primitive Man, Butterflies and Moths, Magnets and Magnetism, Airplanes and the Story of Flight, and Fossils.
OMG… I had forgotten about these! WHat a walk down memory lane! I had:
Dinosaurs
Insects
Reptiles
Our Earth
Horses
Wild Animals
Ants & Bees
Dogs
Prehistoric Mammals
Butterflies & Moths
Winning of the West
Anyone else remember Little Big Books?
I remember the LBB name & I know I had some, but I don’t recall what I had.
I had lots of the H&W books! Oh, to have those & my copies of Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters & Classics Illustrated with covers & pages intact!
I had several of these. My aunt gave me Dinosaurs for my birthday when I was very little. The ones I had (or had read) were:
**Dinosaurs
Rocks and Minerals
Seashells
Primitive Man
Prehistoric Mammals
Science Experiments
Robots and Electronic Brains
Musgrooms Ferns and Mosses
**
My library had hard-bound editions of these in the children’s section.
I still remember from the Robots and Electronic Brains one the acronym for a (proposed?) whale-tracjing robot called MOBY-DIC, which stood for Motorized Observational Bio-telemetry Yacht Data Integration and Control. It was my introduction to the Totured Acronym Syndrome.
There was another series of such books for kids that was obviously trying to tap into the How and Why market – the Saalfield Science Series. They were the same size and format. I had their books on Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Man
http://mysite.verizon.net/markcrowell/saalfield.html
Tom Weller’s excellent humor books, Science Made Stupid and Cvltvre Made Stupid, are parodies clearly modeled on the How and Why series. I strong;ly recommend both:
http://www.besse.at/sms/smsintro.html
I still have mine (although they predate me by at least 30 years). James lileks has been making fun of them at his site, www.lileks.com
I still have this little gem as well. Long live George Zaffo.
http://i2.iofferphoto.com/img/item/195/338/56/Book_Airplanes_Trucks_Trains_Fire_Engines.jpg
This is the Little Big Book I remember reading over and over and over… I don’t remember much about the story other than an earthquake and a wloverine… but as soon as I saw the cover, I remembered the book. Ah, to be young with no worries again.
For that matter, how did Florence Nightingale get her own book when all of the Famous Scientists have to share? That must have been a slim volume.
I love the typography of the titles. I wonder why they didn’t use it for either of the ecology books?