Do you have a formative artifact from your childhood? Maybe a TV show, a book, a game which you feel (perhaps wrongly) you can trace all your personality back to.

When I was a kid, probably 7-8 until I was probably 10 or 11, I had this book which I remembered as a book of facts. It wasn’t an encyclopedia, but it had this eclectic bent -- I mostly remember the science bits, but there was also bits about society and culture too.

It was reasonably large, with large illustrations and I read this book over and over and over and over until it fell apart. Literally. The last time I remember seeing it, I had read it until the covers had both fallen off, and all that remained was the spine. At some point presumably when I had outgrown it, we must have cleaned out my room and thrown it out. After all, in tatters it was scarcely better than trash.

Of course, looking back, this book was definitely one of my formative artifacts. What it instilled in me was a thirst for knowledge; eclectic wide ranging knowledge. Of course, the challenge being that like this book, my knowledge is patchy and broad.

Fast forward almost 25 years, and I found myself thinking about this book. Raising my daughter, and seeing the multitude of ways in which her childhood is different than mine, I keep wondering what will be her formative artifacts. What thing will captivate her? Could it be something like my book? Could I find that book perhaps? Would a book that old capture her imagination?

Of course, after so long, I could no longer remember what this book was called. Who wrote it. What the cover looked like. If I’m being honest, I could barely remember the actual contents of the book were; some illustrations burned deep into my brain mostly.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about it, and I realized I did know a few things about it. Maybe enough to find it? I remembered that it was published by Reader’s Digest. Given when I was reading it, probably in the 1990s. My recollection was that it was a “science” book.

So I started looking. I had been chatting with a friend about this book, and thought... this could well be just the kind of vague nonsense that ChatGPT might actually be helpful with. Not that I expected it to find the book, but that it might help me narrow down on something.

Me: Looking for an old book published in Canada by Readers Digest. It was available in the nineties. It was a thick book filled with facts and experiments. Aimed at young kids. I don’t have a title.

ChatGPT: Without a title, narrowing it down to a specific book can be tricky, but based on your description, it might be one of the popular educational reference books or experiment guides published by Reader's Digest during the 1990s. Reader's Digest released several children's educational and activity books during that time. Some titles that could fit your description are:

How Science Works (Reader's Digest, 1991): This book explained scientific concepts through facts and hands-on experiments, aimed at younger readers.

The How and Why Library (Reader's Digest): A multi-volume set filled with facts, trivia, and educational material aimed at children.

You might try searching through secondhand bookstores or websites like AbeBooks, which specialize in out-of-print books. If you're near a large library, they might have archives of Reader's Digest publications from that era as well.

Doing some searches on “How Science Works” and the “How and Why Library”, I was able to quickly rule out the “How and Why Library”. But... “How Science Works”, well that fit the bill pretty good. So I found a copy on AbeBooks, and it was pretty affordable. I managed to find one photo of the interior... and I wasn’t sure. My memory was fuzzy, but I thought: This is worth a try. So I bought it.

It arrived, and from the moment I opened it, I knew it.

It was the wrong book.

Seems like a neat book, and the experiments could be fun with my kids when they’re a bit older, but this wasn’t the right thing.

So another day, I found myself wandering around AbeBooks, when I realized they had an Advanced Search where you could search by year, by publisher, etc. I started working it out:

Published between 1985-1999
Keyword: Science
Publisher: Reader’s Digest

Wait. That... looks familiar.

Turns out. I have it in my house now. My formative artifact:

Some of these pages, some of these illustrations are baked into my head deep.

Some of these stories are still how I conceive of things, having never really had to update my knowledge in my head (for example, the story of the coelacanth).

I have a very strong feeling this book will not leave nearly the impression on my children that it left on me. Yet, I find myself overjoyed at having found it, this little formative artifact.

Dear Reader: I hope you too have yourself a formative artifact. I hope you can find it, and, maybe yours can be passed on to your own children. A gift they are free to decline, but hey — perhaps they’ll take it.