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Find out moreHow? Why? When? What? And Where? Kids are fascinated with the world around them and are like sponges ready to absorb details and statistics - and take great pleasure in remembering all sorts of wonderful and weird facts! This section picks a selection of non-fiction titles - we also have specialist collections on all sorts of subjects including History, Music, Science, Space, People & Places and much more!
The Young Cyclist’s Companion is a brisk guide for the aspirant bike rider all the way from choosing a first bike to techniques for wheelies and bunny hops and the finer points of riding in a group. Peppered with inspirational quotes from pro cyclists as well as the likes of Freddie Mercury and Albert Einstein, it includes lots of practical advice on equipment, maintenance and road safety as well as fun facts from the history of bikes and bike racing. Whether you want know how to adjust your brakes to perfection, corner at speed or which side of your helmet straps the arms of your sunglasses should be on, all the key elements of riding and looking after your bike are covered with infectious enthusiasm. At 38 pages long it’s short enough to be easily digestible for young readers and riders but those pages are packed with a surprisingly large amount of useful and entertaining information. Best of all it makes you want to get out and ride. ~ Sam Huby, Bikemonger Read a short Q&A with author Peter Drinkell in World of Adventure - 50 Books to Inspire
A Julia Eccleshare Pick of the Month April 2021 | Packed full of illustrations, exciting experiments - and even comic strips - That's Life! encourages young scientists to start looking for the living things around them. Life is everywhere on planet Earth. Jungles, deserts, seas, plains, fields and forests - all of them teem with life but, amazingly, you can also find lots of living things hidden in your home, and even hidden inside you!
You almost know this is going to be a beautiful book by its title. It is described as a Muslim book of shapes, but it is so much more. I have to say I learned a lot from this book and was extremely glad of the informative and helpful glossary. The book offers so much – history, shape and pattern, culture and colour. It is so clever that in addition to the different shapes written about on each page, there are more ovals, or arches to look for in the illustrations, subtly hidden in fabrics and the decorations of the mosque. As with many books for young children the use of rhyming couplets adds a lovely rhythm to the pages, as does the fact that the book tracks a whole day from morning prayer to the night sky. Each page is bright and detailed and all the characters in the illustrations seem to shine with a sense of wonderment as if something magical is happening. There is so much to see and discuss on each page which makes it a perfect book to share.
Interest Age 8+ Reading Age 8 | Over one hundred years since it happened, the story of the sinking of the Titanic still grips the imagination. After all, as David Long says in this new book, ‘almost everything about [its sinking] sounded extraordinary’. Long is a Blue Peter Book Award winner and knows exactly how to describe the events to convey the facts, share the drama, and capture the effect on history. The book explains how the Titanic and her sister ships the Olympic and the Britannic, were designed to be both huge and luxurious, with details that bring this home – the ship was as long as three football pitches, there was a squash court, swimming pool and Turkish baths on its ten decks. There are human details too, such as the fact that passengers took advantage of its state-of-the-art technology to send 200 ‘Marconigrams’ from the ship to friends and family back home. Ably assisted by illustrator Stefano Tambellini, Long relates just how this extraordinary ship sank, but ends by describing the positive changes that came about as a result – new rules about lifeboats and drills, new rules for radio operators, new safety measures for ship design, all designed to prevent future tragedies. Together, it makes for a fascinating record of this unique story and remind us why the Titanic is the ship no-one can forget. Published by dyslexia specialist Barrington Stoke, this is accessible to all readers. Discover David Long's fascinating Apollo 13 space mission facts!
“Do You Love Dinosaurs?” – surely THE all-important question on the lips of thousands of children, and one to which they will undoubtedly roar in reply, “Yes, I do!”. If you know any such dinosaur devotees, I urge you to give them this fact-filled picture book at the earliest opportunity - it’s a romping, stomping exploration of why dinosaurs are absolutely amazing. Beginning with laying down the ten rules that must be obeyed when it comes to dinosaurs (among them, never turn your back on a hungry hunter, and don’t judge a dino by the speed it can go), the book introduces readers to fearsome hunters, gentle giants, leaf-loving veggies, armoured dinosaurs, and raptors, with a super-cool, double-page-spread devoted to the mighty t-rex. There’s also coverage of how fossils are formed, and dinosaur eggs, speed and the creatures they lived alongside, with loads of exciting information for prospective palaeontologists to absorb on every page.
The future is in our hands | This is a book which follows through on commitment – not only is it sustainably produced, but one tree will be planted for every book sold in the UK. It is also a beautifully designed and illustrated book with a carefully thought out structure and page layout to really aid comprehension and understanding. The first section explains the causes of climate change, from greenhouse gases to deforestation, and the combined effect of agriculture, energy production and consumption, buildings and mining. The next section shows the effects on rising sea levels, biodiversity, storms, flooding, heatwaves, wildfires etc. Each spread includes a mix of images, graphic representations, text boxes and conveys a great deal of information in a clear, accessible and engaging manner. There is also a Changemaker feature on every page which gives brief details about a young person affected by these issues and what they did to combat them. The third section “Our Part” shows the individual contribution to the problem and is the clearest explanation I have seen of the carbon footprint of our food, our clothes, our homes, our travel and our stuff! But far from being a depressing book, the last section “ Inspiration” lists more young Groundbreakers and tells us what we each can do and what sort of green futures we can work towards, revealing more amazing ideas getting started than I had thought possible. A detailed and informative glossary ensures this book takes no chances with understanding. This is an outstanding information book which is useful for a wide range of students.
March 2021 Non-Fiction Book of the Month | The Usborne Book of the Brain (and How it Works) by neuroscientist Betina Ip is a delightful science book aimed at children aged 5+. It takes young readers on a journey inside the human head to see how the brain works and what it does, looking at the main brain cells (neurons) and their connections. It uses simple terms to explain how we see, think, use our senses, feel emotions, form memories, sleep and make decisions. Using age-appropriate practical examples, such as ‘How do we decide which ice cream to have?’, the book gives young children plenty to talk about with their family, friends and teachers. There are also sections on how to look after your brain and how scientists learn about brains. With its colourful illustrations and packed full of fascinating facts, this book is perfect – and great fun – for inquisitive children (and their parents).
A Julia Eccleshare Pick of the Month March 2021 | Filled with curious and intriguing illustrations and with an original text filled with unusual and fascinating facts, this handsome, large format picture book takes a completely new look at vegetables. Accompanying each vegetable, or sometimes a pair of vegetables as with a carrot and a parsnip which are similar although they are described as ‘an odd couple’, there is an elegant text telling something of the history of how each one comes to be on our tables, something of how each one grows and something about the traditions about how we eat them. The delights in this book are perfect for sharing for all ages.
Inspiring children to protect our planet is an essential part of the fight against climate change and the neglect of our wild and special places. Antarctica is bursting with beautiful illustrations and surprising facts, with nature, history and even geo-politics wrapped up in an entertaining and logical narrative. Kids reading this book will get to learn the importance of research and science to the environment, while at the same time adding to their knowledge of whales, penguins, seals, volcanoes … and of course ice! The stories and pictures also speak to the adventurer within all of us, bringing to life an alien yet magical landscape which in the grand scheme of things has only been recently discovered. My favourite fact is that when you are at the South Pole the only way you can look is north. If only I’d thought about that that when I was seven… Antarctica is a wonderful example of how a book in the hands of a child might just change the world.
Information book and poem both, Swim, Shark, Swim takes readers on a journey through the world’s oceans in the company of a blacktip reef shark. It begins in the waters off western Australia, where the shark, ‘This reef-watcher, jewel-guarder’, is urged to ‘swim, Shark, SWIM!’ to avoid a net. Through a tunnel of bubbles and light he speeds away through his saltwater world, and as readers travel with him, they too are plunged into the different seas, encountering a variety of sharks – tiger sharks, white tips, a tunnel-mouthed basking shark in ‘cathedral-cold waters’, a great white, ‘slicing wolf-eels from forests of kelp/ like the sea’s ancient spear.’ The language is beautiful and the images are too, both capturing all the quiet of the deep oceans and the power of the sharks that glide through them. As they read, children will discover so much about sharks and come to understand why it is so important that we protect them. A page of Shark Facts at the end provides further information for the curious. An inspiring and very special book.
Shortlisted for Children’s Non-fiction Book of the Year category, British Book Awards 2022 | The nation's favourite doctor, Dr Ranj, is here to explain everything you ever wanted to know about puberty - plus lots more. Filled with easy-to-understand explanations, down-to-earth advice and cheeky illustrations, this growing-up guide by trusted paediatrician Dr Ranj is perfect for readers aged 10+ who want to discover the confidence to be the very best version of themselves.
Written by a top comic for kids and the author of The Funny Life of Pets, James Campbell’s Write Your Own Funny Stories is a stimulating how-to guide to writing your own “sizzlingly stupendous stories”. Packed with dozens of fun suggestions for generating ideas, from drawing on the Inspiration Elf, to acting out characters, this is an interactive feast of inspiration and encouragement, with guided activities and space to write alongside longer accounts of the likes of boredom (and how to banish it), the shape of stories, and the “story rainbow”, a fun, fresh way to frame the interplay between plot, characters, setting and style. The summaries of things that are funny and how to make them funnier are both (ahem) funny and useful, and Rob Jones’s illustrations bring plenty to the party too - cool, comic, and cleverly integrated with the animated text.
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