Conference moira::parenting

    
    
    
    	honestly, I would never pay that much money for 40 books.

	Here's two thoughts on this:
	
	We bought the set last week for our child (4 months).  One
	of the things that the representative seemed to stress (in my
	mind, anyways) was you have to make a time investment to work
	with these "tools" in order for them to work.  It is more than
	just a set of books, it has tapes for helping to learn ending
	sounds and other phonics, etc.  I already spend time with Anders
	(my son) to read so I felt this would be a good investment for
	us as I want to encourage the reading.

	My SIL bought the set for her children (not sure when) and 
	thinks it was a great waste of money.  She would not recommend
	this program to anyone.  Both her children (5 and 2) do not
	read or like books.

	I guess my bottom line is: can you take the time to spend with
	your children "home teaching" the things this set has.  If not,
	then I wouldn't suggest buying it.

	Lisa...

re .2:

If your SIL thinks it was a waste of money, why didn't you buy it from her?

>>If your SIL thinks it was a waste of money, why didn't you buy it from her?

Because I had already bought the set from CG and knowing my SIL she probably
threw it out anyways!  My husband doesn't even want to tell them that we
bought it (he only mentioned that we were talking to the CG representative
about it)

Lisa...

    
    Just a word of warning about buying encyclopedias for young children.
    Remember that a large amount of the information in the encyclopedia
    will be out of date by the time your young child will be old enough
    to do reports.  I bought an encyclopedia set in 1988 and now regret
    it (although I love reference books and often read them for fun), now
    that Nathan is old enough to do a report about Jupiter, a lot of the
    info in the encyclopedia is wrong.
    
    We've decided to get Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia on CDrom
    and it has been wonderful and a significant cost savings over
    a set of books.  We will probably upgrade it every 2 or 3 years
    to keep the info current.
    
    Good luck with your decision,
    Pam

    We had a sales rep from Grolier over once to discuss the British
    Britaina (sp?) encyclopedia sets.  Now when I was a kid, I remember my
    parents had this set. The information was a bit out of date then. 
    
    Last November the set was going for about
    $3,000.  When I asked 'how often is the data updated?' the answer was
    every 25 years but we update/rewrite the entire volume, but you have the 
    option to buy the yearly volume "book" (addendums) to keep your set 
    current (at an additional yearly cost of course) and you could only get 
    the past 5 years previous annual updates (addendums).  When analyzing the 
    publish date of their last 'updated SET version' I realized they were 
    trying to sell me the same set my parents had 20 years ago and if I 
    wanted to buy the past 5 years yearly volume book I could.  
    
    My questions were:	What about the 15 years gap of annual updates,
    			isn't that history I would want my kids to learn?
    
    			Do I really want to pay for books on an installment
    			set up like a mortgage?
    
    			How much do the books really cost?  Can I get a
    			similar reference set cheaper?  After-all this 
    			person was making a *living* by coming to my home to 
    			sell me reference material.  *hefty commision was a 
    			sure bet*.
    
    I chose not to buy.  When my kids are old enough I'll try the local
    Library, they tend to keep up with the must current reference material.
    
    I do have to admit, the books 'looked' real nice in the bookcase when I 
    was growing up.
    
    Just a thought.
    
    Joyce
    
    
    

    Thanks for all the responses.
    
    We've decided NOT to buy this set.  The biggest thing is the
    cost.  We have a lot of the same material available to us in
    the libraries.  Why spend the money?  It also seems like too
    much money, if you ask me.
    
    Thanks again,
    
    Peggy
    

    Well, a little late, but if you were going more to have "reference
    materials" of SOME sort on hand, you could try the approach I used (and
    yes, they look nice in the bookcase!) ... through the classifieds in
    DEC, I bought a full set of Encyclopedia Brittanica and the Brittanica
    Jr for about $100.00.  They are MANY years old (15+?), but we've found
    them to be INCREDIBLY useful!!  We used them just a week ago to find
    out how old Houdini was when he got married, for a report my older son
    was doing (and the info wasn't in any of the 3 Houdini-biography books
    he had).  Also, we used it last week to confirm that Pluto is *NOT* the
    planet furthest from the sun! (Ha!  Did you know that?!?)  My 7 yr old
    was thrilled he won THAT bet! (-;
    
    We've used them to look up all SORTS of things, and they have oodles of
    "static" information in them.  I'm sure it has all they'll ever write
    about the world wars, tons about plants/animals, and enough about the
    solar system to get the gist of things.
    
    Obviously world maps and current history is a joke, but it's also
    interesting because if the kids DO do something on current geography,
    they'll have some of the past as a comparison.
    
    They're too young to use it (and Brittanica's one of the more
    complicated TO use), but it's mostly for me, and for $100.00, it was
    well worth the investment.
    
    So, if you just want SOMEthing to reference, buy a used set, and use
    the library for "updated" information.  It'll save you a FEW trips, I'm
    sure! (you may even check with the library, what they do with their old
    sets...)
    
    Patty

    If you're going to spend 1500.00 or 3000.00 on reference books, I'd
    save the money and purchase a multimedia pc with the reference CDROMS. 
    We just bought our second pc (the first 3 years ago).  This pc has the
    jr and full version encyclopedias.  This services my 7, 17 and 19 year
    olds.  I also have a 3yr old that uses the older pc with the preschool
    learning games and such.  But he will migrate to the new pc too.  
    
    For me, this is money well spent.  We have a terrific library in town
    and now a great library on line at home.  I'll also be hitting the net
    from home and open the kids up to the many appropriate sites on the
    internet and commercial site (like AOL).
    
    Chris