[dizzyviolet]

In 6th grade (1986), my Georgia school was terribly poor and outdated. The newest book on space had a sentence I will never forget as long as I live: "If we ever land on the moon, we may find it is teeming with life."

It was difficult to be a child in rural Georgia that wanted to read everything in existence on space, physics, etc. before the internet.

[morganvachon]

Sounds like where I grew up (also rural Georgia). I think I'm a couple of years younger than you, but I distinctly remember when I hit the 6th grade in 1988 and suddenly had access to an encyclopedia that was newer than 1964.

That said, I did enjoy the antiquated references for what they were.

[waterlesscloud]

I'm trying to remember if my rural Georgia elementary school even had a library. Surely it must have, but I can't remember any space books in it. We did have a "book fair" that came around a couple times a year and I got a wonderful, new space book there.

The tiny town library had a bunch of Tom Swift books from the 1930s or whenever that I devoured. First books I remember choosing to read myself. Which probably explains a lot, actually.