Editorial Note
Modern Parenting Digest is an independent publication on raising curious kids. This article reflects the personal opinion and experience of one grandparent and is for general information only.
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KID'S ENCYCLOPEDIA "10,000 WHYS"
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At 68, I'd almost given up finding a gift my grandson would actually use. Everyone told me to just buy him another screen. Six weeks after I handed him one hardcover book, he still hasn't put it down.
For months I searched for a present that wouldn't be forgotten by New Year. Then a friend said over coffee: give him this one book and just watch what happens. Today it lives on his nightstand, and he reads it every single evening.
I'm 68, and I can tell you the exact evening I stopped guessing. My grandson opened yet another gadget at his birthday, smiled for about a minute, and had wandered off to something else before the cake was even cut.
It hadn't always felt this hard. But somewhere along the way every present I picked turned into another toy that lit up for a week and then sat in a bin. Noah is eight, sharp as anything and full of questions, and I kept buying him things that asked nothing of him at all.
I finally asked his mother what he actually needed, half certain she'd say a new game console. She went quiet, then said the thing I didn't want to hear: he's on a screen most of the day, and nothing we've tried gets him to sit with a book.
So that's exactly what I did for a while. I kept buying the easy gifts. And every time Noah's eyes drifted back to a tablet, part of me ached, because I remembered a boy who used to ask me why the sky was blue and actually wait for the answer.
Things had gotten quieter with him. Shorter visits, more headphones, fewer of those endless 'but why, Grandma?' questions I used to pretend to be tired of. I told myself this was simply what kids are like now. Deep down I would have given anything to get his curiosity back.
Then I met Diane for coffee. We've been friends for years. She's a grandmother too, practical and funny, the sort who researches everything before she buys it. She took one look at me across the table and asked what was wrong.
"Why do you look like you've lost something?" she asked, stirring her coffee and waiting me out.
I told her what Noah's mother had said, and my voice wobbled more than I expected.
"He's on a screen all day and nobody can pull him off it. I miss the little boy who used to ask me a hundred questions. I don't know what you're supposed to do with 'that's just kids now.'"
She set her cup down and nodded, like she'd heard the very same worry from a dozen grandparents before me. Then she said the thing that stuck:
"I was exactly where you are last year with my granddaughter. There's one book I gave her, the Kid's Encyclopedia '10,000 Whys.' Give it to Noah and watch him for a couple of weeks. After that you can tell me screens were the only thing that held him."
The coffee where Diane told me about the book
Diane pulled out her phone right there at the table and showed me the page. One thick hardcover encyclopedia written for kids, packed with the real questions children actually ask. No app, no screen, nothing to charge. He just opens it and reads.
Then she read me what it covers. Space and the universe, dinosaurs, the human body, oceans, weather, animals, history, science, all of it in one book, written simply and illustrated on every page. I went quiet for a moment.
"This is the one thing that works with my granddaughter," she said. "The '10,000 Whys.' It answers the questions kids really wonder about, in language they get, so they keep turning pages instead of asking for the tablet. Built for exactly the age Noah is. No screen, no batteries, and it's his to keep forever."
I looked at her. "Diane, it's a book. He has a whole shelf of books he's never opened."
She just smiled and kept scrolling. "Not like this one. Give it to him and pay attention to the first week. You won't need me to talk you into buying a second copy for the other grandkids."
I was skeptical. I'd already handed him plenty of 'educational' toys that thrilled him for a day and changed nothing, and I'd long stopped expecting much from a shiny product page.
But Diane had already sent me the link, so I ordered it that same evening.
The first evenings, when he actually chose the book
The package came a few days later. A solid, satisfying hardcover, heavier than I expected, with a cover so colorful Noah grabbed it out of the box before I could even wrap it.
Inside were the things children genuinely wonder about, laid out page by page with big illustrations. Nothing dense, nothing dumbed down. Just answers to the questions he was already asking.
I braced for the usual story anyway: a polite thank you, one flip through, then back to the screen by bedtime. Diane had said most grandparents are surprised by how fast that first evening goes.
She was right. He opened to a page about black holes, then one about why the ocean is salty, and forgot I was in the room. When his mother called him for dinner he asked for five more minutes.
The next evening, the same. Homework done, then straight to the book on the floor with his knees up.
By the third or fourth evening I caught him reading it after lights-out with a flashlight, the way I used to hide under the covers with a torch.
No app to download. No battery to charge. Just one book that quietly became the part of his day he looked forward to most.
I texted Diane: "Did I seriously just catch him reading past his bedtime, on purpose?"
She texted back: "That's the whole point. It feels like fun to him, not homework. That's why kids actually stick with it."
That night I sat on the edge of his bed for a minute after he'd finally fallen asleep, book still open on the covers.
I felt... hopeful. Not because of one gift. Because the boy who used to ask me everything was clearly still in there.
The ease was real.
He told his mother three facts about the moon at breakfast, the way he used to chatter before the screens took over. And the quiet worry I'd been carrying for two years suddenly felt lighter.
I felt like a grandmother who'd finally found the right gift.
And that was DAY THREE.
Why it worked when the toys and apps didn't
After a couple of weeks I wanted to understand why one book was doing what a shelf of gadgets never had. I called Diane and made her explain the whole thing.
What she told me honestly made me a little cross, mostly about every overpriced 'educational' toy I'd bought that never had a chance of keeping him.
Why the usual gifts fall flat
Most of the time the advice is buy him whatever's popular, or download another 'learning' app. It looks fine on the shelf, but it does nothing for a curious mind tonight, and a flashy app only holds his attention for a few minutes before he taps away to a game.
The other route is the enrichment treadmill. Tutoring and after-school programs add up fast, and they mean schedules, drop-offs, and turning something a child does for fun into one more thing they have to attend.
So you feel stuck between handing him another screen and signing him up for programs that cost far more than a book and drain the joy out of learning. In between, there was nothing that quietly fed his curiosity while he simply enjoyed it.
Why one good book works differently
Diane explained it to me like this:
"Most gifts only hold a child on the surface. A toy is exciting for a day and forgotten by the weekend. A good encyclopedia goes after what's underneath. It answers the real questions, so it feeds the curiosity instead of just distracting from it."
That's not a small thing. A curious mind grows on real answers, and real answers are exactly what a child stops getting once a screen just hands them the next video. The illustrations pull them in, and the plain-language answers keep them reading.
Instead of numbing his attention, the book works with it. A game stops at the surface. The '10,000 Whys' is built to feed what the curiosity depends on, question by question, evening after evening.
One book, hundreds of answers, no screen and no learning curve.
That's the difference between parking a child in front of a tablet and quietly growing his mind a little every single week.
Real questions, real answers and beautiful illustrations in one hardcover book, written for exactly his age.
What's actually inside the book
Diane walked me through exactly what turns up at your door:
One thick hardcover encyclopedia built for ages 6 to 12, packed with the real questions kids ask every day and answered in language they actually understand, illustrated on page after page
Twelve big subjects in a single book, from space, dinosaurs and the human body to oceans, weather, animals, history, science and technology, so whatever he's curious about that week, it's in there
A gift-ready hardcover that lasts for years, no screen, no batteries and nothing to update, so it slots into an evening as easily as story time and stays on his shelf
You hand him the book and let his curiosity do the rest. And right now there's the SUMMER SALE: 50% OFF + FREE SHIPPING, plus a 30-day money-back promise.
The family dinner when I realized something had changed
About three weeks in, the whole family came over for Sunday dinner, the way we do most months.
And the odd thing is: I hadn't planned anything special. Same table, same roast, same crowd of cousins talking over each other.
For once Noah wasn't glued to a screen in the corner waiting for it to be over.
He was at the table telling everyone why volcanoes erupt, hands going, completely lit up. Present, curious, himself again.
The next morning my daughter, who had been quietly skeptical of 'another book,' met me for coffee.
She has known that boy his whole life and had watched him drift toward screens for a year. She set her cup down halfway to her mouth and just looked at me.
"Okay," she said. "What did you do to him? I haven't seen him this switched on in ages."
I laughed, and it caught in my throat a little.
That was the moment it really landed for me.
The change had already happened before I understood what I was looking at. I'd spent so long watching him disappear into a screen that seeing him curious again hit me harder than I expected. We sat there a while, and I let her ask, because honestly I wanted to tell someone.
Then she asked the question I still think about.
"So what was it? He's got a hundred toys and none of them did this."
"The Kid's Encyclopedia '10,000 Whys.' It's just one book, the kind that answers all the questions he used to ask. A friend recommended it to me when I'd run out of ideas."
"I need that for him," she said, and pulled out her phone right there to write it down. A grandmother and a mother, trading notes over coffee about a book, of all things. That is exactly how it went.
"He seems like his old self."
"I know, right? I'll spell the name for you."
We finished our coffee, and for the first time in months I felt something I'd almost given up on.
Like I'd found my curious grandson again.
The six weeks that surprised me
He kept reading it a few evenings a week, and the change came quietly, week by week.
Day 1: He opened the book, found a page about why we dream, and read it out loud to me. That was it. No lecture, no fight about screen time, just a boy genuinely interested. What stayed with me was the idea behind it: feeding his curiosity instead of numbing it the way a game does.
Week 1: By the end of the first week it was small things. More questions at dinner, fewer demands for the tablet. Nothing dramatic yet, but enough to keep him coming back to it.
Week 2: His curiosity started to wake back up. I wasn't imagining it, his teacher noticed too. Reading felt easier to him, less like homework and more like something he chose on his own.
Week 5 to 6: This is where it surprised me. He was explaining tectonic plates to his cousins, asking deeper questions, reading for the fun of it, more than I'd seen in two years. Not the boy who'd checked out behind a screen. Just Noah, curious and switched on and excited about his evenings again.
And the best part was how the small wins kept adding up. This week a new fact about space, next week a question about the human body, then a whole weekend where he never once asked for the tablet. Over six weeks it became something no toy or app ever came close to.
The funny thing was that I stopped worrying about his screen time. He just reads his book and gets on with his evening.
Almost nothing else about his routine changed. Same days, one book added a few evenings a week, done. And for once I wasn't fretting.
Why the big toy brands don't tell you about this
This is the part that genuinely gets under my skin:
When you worry about a child's screen time, the answer is almost always: that's just kids now, get him an app, wait for him to grow out of it. That's not wrong exactly, but you sit at home watching him drift further while the worry quietly grows.
If one hardcover book can pull a child off a screen and hand him back his curiosity, most of us would reach for exactly that. And yet almost nobody ever shows it to you.
Be honest. When did anyone last hand you something a child would actually choose over a tablet, instead of "just give it time"?
The money is in the expensive route. Tutoring, subscription apps and the endless stream of light-up toys all cost far more over a year than one book ever will. A one-time $39.90 encyclopedia your grandchild keeps for years is a small, quiet corner nobody gets rich telling you about.
A closet full of half-used learning toys, and none of them helped.
The '10,000 Whys' does it differently.
One book, hundreds of real answers, no screen and nothing to update, aimed at what actually keeps a child reading. No subscriptions, no schedules, no fight. He just opens it and it becomes part of his evening.
That is why the families I know who start with it stay with it, while the big brands keep selling the next plastic gadget that thrills for a day and teaches nothing.
That is why you may never have heard of it. That is why it isn't in every toy aisle. That is why it keeps selling out. Most families come to the '10,000 Whys' because another parent or grandparent told them about it, the way Diane told me.
Diane put it to me plainly: "Nobody makes money telling you to wait it out, and nobody makes much off a book you buy once either. Which is exactly why it is worth trying."
Why starting sooner beats waiting
The line from Diane that stuck with me:
The sooner you give it to them, the sooner their curiosity has something real to feed on, and the more of those good evenings you get back. If you wait, you just watch those months go by.
I'll keep it simple.
The whole trick is the reading he does in the evening. After dinner. During the quiet hour before bed. It works quietly in the background while he simply enjoys it.
But this is the part that really hit me: the clock keeps running either way.
Every week you put it off is a week his curiosity gets fed by a screen instead of a book, and he settles a little more into that, instead of falling back in love with learning.
And it doesn't take forever. Many families notice a change within the first couple of weeks. Week 1 tends to bring more questions and less screen-nagging, by week 2 the reading often feels like his own idea. But those weeks only start counting once he has the book.
Think about how long you've been meaning to find him something that actually sticks. You say you'll get to it soon, and one day you look up and another year is gone and he's still on the tablet. Starting now changes that.
Believe me, I wish I'd given it to him weeks earlier. I spent a long stretch just worrying and buying the easy gifts and doing nothing that lasted.
I won't get those weeks back. But his first evening with it happened the night the box arrived.
And more to the point: you can have it on his shelf this week, with years of curious evenings still ahead of him.
And this is what happens if you keep putting it off:
In the next few weeks:
You keep handing him the same screens, and every evening ends the same quiet way
He misses the early spark other kids show within the first couple of weeks
The book that could already be on his shelf sits in your cart while the weeks pass
You tell yourself you'll order it "before his next birthday," and nothing changes
This time next year:
He's a year older and still glued to a screen most evenings
One month blends into the next because he's still scrolling, not reading
Diane's granddaughter is devouring her second copy because she started months ago, and you're still meaning to order
You wait again, and another year goes by exactly like the one before it
Nobody likes to admit this part:
Every week you put it off is a week his curiosity gets nothing new to grow on. The clock runs either way. The only question is whether a real book is feeding it during that time. One book, a few evenings a week.
But here is the good news: you can have it on his shelf this week.
The '10,000 Whys' is built for exactly this. Real questions, plain-language answers and big illustrations, one hardcover, no screen and no learning curve. That is how Noah went from barely looking up from a tablet to explaining volcanoes at Sunday dinner, without changing anything else.
Every evening quietly feeds his curiosity while he simply enjoys the book.
The question isn't whether your grandchild deserves a real shot at loving to learn.
The question is this: Do you want to see the difference in a few weeks? Or look back next year and wish you'd started now?
And right now the SUMMER SALE is on: 50% OFF + FREE SHIPPING, it doesn't get cheaper than this.
I'm not saying this to rush you. I'm saying it because I wish Diane had told me months earlier, and not only over that coffee.
The catch: the '10,000 Whys' keeps selling out
You won't find this on a store shelf. The book is only sold directly by Prime Naturals.
And because word spreads between parents and grandparents, the book sells out faster than they can restock, especially during the sale. As I write this, most of today's batch is already claimed.
Diane warned me about that. She said grab it while it's in stock: the book is normally $79.80 and is marked down to $39.90 right now, which saves you 50%. That's one hardcover that keeps a child reading for years, for less than the cost of another toy he'll forget by the weekend. Two families she knows waited too long and ended up on a restock list.
One of them said it perfectly. She only realized how much the book had done for her grandson once it went back on the shelf for a while and he drifted back to the tablet.
Ours stays on Noah's nightstand now, so the habit never slips. Diane keeps a spare for birthdays. Between the two of us, we've got the grandkids covered.
During the sale it goes fast. Since you've read this far: take the 50% off with free shipping while it lasts. 30-day money-back promise, so there's no risk in trying it.
Get the book while the sale lasts
- β¨ 50% off today, plus free shipping
- π Hardcover encyclopedia, ages 6-12
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What real customers say
Real families, real kids, real curiosity
I bought this for my grandson's birthday not sure what he'd make of it. He looked at the cover, asked "is this actually mine?", and read it at his own party. Two months later he's been through it three times and wants to know if there's a second one. Best gift I've given in years.
My daughter has never once picked up a book on her own. I left this on the coffee table on a Friday. By Sunday she'd read half of it and was explaining to her grandfather why the moon doesn't fall out of the sky. He's a retired engineer, and he was impressed.
My nine-year-old asked me why we have two eyes instead of one. I didn't know. He found the answer in here himself and spent forty-five minutes reading about vision and the brain. His teacher called two weeks later to say he was the most engaged kid in class.
If you've read this far, your grandchild deserves a gift that lasts
For two years I watched a curious little boy slowly disappear into a screen and told myself it was normal.
The sinking feeling every time I saw him zoned out on a tablet. The "that's just kids now" from everyone around me. The toys and apps I'd tried before that taught him nothing.
But at that Sunday dinner, watching him light up telling the whole table why volcanoes erupt, it was never about a quick fix.
It was about giving him something that actually feeds his curiosity, while he got to fall back in love with learning.
For months I told myself this is just how kids are now and there's nothing to be done. I'd stopped expecting to see that spark in him again.
Six weeks in, he was curious, talkative, and reading for the joy of it. That was the moment I stopped worrying and was simply glad I'd found the right gift.
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