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The Magic of Exploring the Outdoors After Dark | Calling all outdoor adventurers who want to walk on the wild side by the light of the moon! While there’s no shortage of brilliant books to inspire and guide nature exploration in young adventurers, Chris Salisbury’s Wild Nights Out is the first nature guide to focus on night-time activities, which gives both the book and its activities a distinct and decidedly magical edge. With a foreword by Chris Packham, this is a brilliant book for grown-ups to use with 7+-year-olds who share their passion for the great outdoors. The text addresses adults, as opposed to chattily speaking to children direct, but with a background in theatre and environmental education, and currently working as professional storyteller alongside directing the Call of the Wild Foundation programme for educators-in-training, the author is well-placed to advise on how to engage young explorers. As for the activities, the book covers a blend of games, walks and sensory experiences, the latter of which form an excellent foundation from which to explore the world at night, with exercises designed to focus and enhance one’s sensory perceptions. Then there are practical activities covering the likes of learning to call for owls, detect bats and understand the night sky alongside immersive theatrical activities, such as hosting nocturnal animal performances and fireside storytelling. With black-and-white illustrations throughout and activities to last the entire summer holidays, this certainly shines an inspiring and informative light on night-time nature.
This book is aimed at young people who are just entering into the world of cycling. It explains all the basics: How to choose a bike (types of bike, getting the right fit), basic maintenance (changing a tyre, cleaning your bike), cycling techniques (pedalling, gearing, cornering, bunny hops) and next level cycling (competitions and training).
From a crescent moon to a square garden to an octagonal fountain, this breathtaking picture book celebrates the shapes-and traditions-of the Muslim world. Sure to inspire questions and observations about world religions and cultures, Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets is equally at home in a classroom reading circle and on a parent's lap being read to a child.
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!
“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.
Interest Age 8+ Reading Age 8 | Award-winning children's non-fiction writer David Long takes you on a voyage like no other in Tragedy At Sea: The Sinking of the Titanic. Overflowing with astounding facts and fascinating illustrations and diagrams, discover the catastrophic end of the Titanic in this riveting account of one of history’s most famous disasters. This brilliantly accessible retelling of this unforgetable tragedy is a perfect and engaging read for history fanatics and reluctant readers alike, supported with fantastic black and white illustrations from Stefano Tambellini. Discover David Long's fascinating Apollo 13 space mission facts!
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. ~ Greg Hackett Greg Hackett is the Founder & Director of the London Mountain Film Festival
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.
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).
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.
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.
First published over 150 years ago, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species still shapes how we see the world, and his words and theories are fascinating for young people. This handsomely illustrated book clearly explains Darwin’s discoveries and what they revealed in a way that even young children will follow and understand. It’s divided into short, manageable sections, each examining and elucidating Darwin’s ideas on selection and evolution, the final pages bringing us right up to date and outlining what we can do now thanks to modern discoveries and technology. Beautiful to look at, it’s genuinely inspiring, a way to tune young readers into Darwin’s thought process and spark their imagination and interest in science as a result.
