You’re seven years old. You’re walking through the woods near your house. The forest is so green. You can smell earth. You hear birds in the trees overhead. You come upon a tree that fell during a storm the other night. You look up in the top of the fallen branches. You discover a monarch butterfly, majestic, dark orange, lord of all he surveys.
Now you’re nine. You’re at the beach. It’s low tide, and you are walking around tide pools. You see periwinkles, and sand dollars, and barnacles. You can taste the salt in the air. When you see it. It looks like something out of a nightmare. You discover a horseshoe crab. The creature is primordial and strangely, in its way, beautiful.
You are eleven, and your parents have taken you on a trip to an old Civil War battlefield. There is a monument at the end of the field to the soldiers who died here. You notice the serenity of the field. You imagine the chaos of battle as brother fought brother. You see something out of the corner of your eye glinting in the sun. You bend down, and discover an old spent bullet casing. An ancient remnant of the conflict that once enveloped this place.
Discovery is a fundamental part of human nature. It is who we are. We yearn to walk into the dark woods, to explore the stony shores, to find the oldest book in the library.
We call our children’s encyclopedia “Discovery” because when your kids read it, that is what they will do. They will discover ancient kingdoms, great heroes, deep forests, and the fundamental forces of science.
So, what will you discover today?
