It has played an active role in spreading knowledge and popularizing science, and has influenced generations of young people to embark on the road of science. Influenced by it, books with the title of "100,000 Why" emerge in an endless stream, becoming synonymous with children's popular science books.
The title of "A Hundred Thousand Why" is borrowed from the popular science reading "A Hundred Thousand Why" by the Soviet scientific literature writer Ilya (real name Ilya Yakov Levich Marshak).
Ilya also took a poem from 1907 by Joseph Rudyard Kipling, a British writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate: "Where are the 5,000 people? How about seven thousand? A hundred thousand why? " "Hundred thousand" is a virtual finger, which is used to describe many things.
The first edition of 100,000 Why is published by Children's Publishing House.
The success of a hundred thousand whys lies in the word "set". When planning the first edition of "100,000 Why", we noticed the supporting problems. The first edition is divided into five volumes of physics, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, agriculture and physiology, with more than 900 "why". Later, three volumes of mathematics, geology and geography and animals were added.
1962 65438+ 8 volumes published in February. At this time, the first edition of "100,000 Why" received 1.484 questions, 1.05 million words. The first edition * * * printed more than 5.3 million copies.
At that time, after the call of "marching into science" was issued in China, the editors of children's publishing house, one of the only two professional children's publishing houses at that time, were very encouraged and came up with some good children's popular science books to break the current situation that there were not too many popular science books.
However, due to various failures, editors also stopped from the book production that only emphasizes speed but not quality, thinking that only paying attention to quality is the right way.
From 65438 to 0959, they set out to write a set of natural science encyclopedias to answer various questions for high school students and junior high school students. After a period of soliciting contributions, they gradually established the editing idea of breaking through textbooks and classroom teaching, and set the tone for the editing of 100,000 books in the future. 100,000 Why has become one of the most famous popular science reading brands in China.