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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!
Shortlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2020 | A fascinating guidebook to bears large and less large, this quirky book is packed with information but full of humour too. It introduces readers to the eight different species of bears living in the world, and there’s a section on each one, with a very useful illustrated panel showing ‘how they size up’. This is followed by pages on things all or most bears do, from eating and swimming (all) to hibernating (not all). There’s a mix of text and Katie Viggers’ characterful illustrations and alongside the facts, she has lots of fun – sloth bears for example, whose long, shaggy coats mean they often look untidy, are depicted at the bear hair salon. It’s comic but memorable too. Even if you didn’t love bears at the beginning of the book, you will by the end and either way you’ll have learned a great deal.
Informative, accessible and visually very appealing, this book is perfect for any young child who gazes up in wonder at the night sky. Via short blocks of text and colour illustrations it explains what stars are, describes the constellations and tells readers how to recognise planets and even satellites. It’s also full of practical information for young star-gazers, with advice on what to look for in the night sky, when and where. Our guide is Felicity, a friendly and knowledgeable cat, named in honour of the first cat in space, an added treat which makes the story even more reader-friendly.
Following up their Blue Peter Award winning science information book A Day in the Life of a Poo, A Gnu and You, Mike Barfield and Jess Bradley take readers on a tour though history. Once again, they use ingenious, information-packed comic strips to bring the past alive for children. The first section looks at Ancient History, from early humans to the Romans, followed by tours through the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. There are three types of full colour entries too: Day in the Life strips give a snapshot of different points of history and are recounted by subjects such as a wheel in Mesopotamia, a Russian beard and – my favourite – a dead sheep, later to become the Magna Carta. Pages called Secret Diaries provide readers with an inside view, e.g. that of Isaac Newton’s cat, Spithead. Newsflashes helpfully bring headlines from around the rest of the world, explaining what was happening elsewhere at the time. It makes for a lively and engaging presentation; a book children will want to go back to again and again for all the stories and jokes learning lots each time. There’s a useful world map at the beginning and a glossary at the end. A clever and memorable way of teaching history.
Winner of the Blue Peter Book Awards 2021, Best Book with Facts | A Day in the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You is packed with facts, laughs and amazing illustrations you can dive into all day long. Meet your grumpy liver that has to do practically EVERYTHING; your trusty hands that are very, well, handy; the spiky porcupines ready to charge; lonely Mars rovers abandoned on the Red Planet; raging tornadoes ready to rip through the pages of the book and bubbly volcanoes ready to blow. All entries are told in the fun, friendly and informative style of Mike Barfield, and are brought to life by the colour-explosion of Jess Bradley's awesome illustrations.
This enchanting reinvention of a Natural History of Fairies written by botanist Professor Elsie Arbour in the 1920s glows with timeless charm and the magic of nature. What’s more, author Emily Hawkins’s message about protecting fairies’ natural habitats has important real-world resonance, such as this: “human actions are putting fairies’ habitats at risk. When forests and woodland are cut down to make space for farmland…then fairies’ homes are destroyed.” Fairy enthusiasts will delight in the detail of the softly-radiant illustrations that present fairy anatomy and life cycles in the manner of natural history books, replete with labels and descriptions. Throughout, the book is suffused with a thrilling feeling that fairies might be found - if you know what you’re looking for, and where to look. The section on language and secret scripts will undoubtedly inspire young readers to write their own fairy codes, while coverage of a huge range of habitats - from meadows, gardens and woodlands, to mountains, marine environments and jungles - gives a satisfying global feel. Alongside providing fairy-lovers with much fodder for exploration, this coverage of habitats, and information on the likes of leaves, plants and animals, might also spark a wider love of nature. Sumptuously presented, with a silk bookmark, and gold edging and cover foil supplementing Jessica Roux’s illustrations, this book’s style is every bit as charming as its content, which makes it a gift to treasure.
Longlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2021 | Award-winning author-illustrator Neal Layton is here to explain where plastic comes from, why it doesn't biodegrade, and why that's dangerous for animals and humans alike. But he's also FULL of ideas for how you can help! From giving up straws in juice cartons to recycling all we can and taking part in a beach clean, A Planet Full of Plastic will get young readers excited about how they can make a difference to keep Planet Earth happy.
Crammed full of information which will answer a great many questions about what goes on in the universe around us; this is a brilliantly written introduction which has been cleverly simplified for younger readers from the hugely successful original by Bill. Divided into short chapters which make it easier to understand and supported by an excellent index, the story of how the universe came into being, how humans evolved, how we have discovered what we know about space and much, much more are all well described and attractively illustrated.
Crammed full of information which will answer a great many questions about what goes on in the universe around us; this is a brilliantly written introduction which has been cleverly simplified for younger readers from the hugely successful original by Bill. Divided into short chapters which make it easier to understand and supported by an excellent index, the story of how the universe came into being, how humans evolved, how we have discovered what we know about space and much, much more are all well described and attractively illustrated.
Longlisted for the UKLA Book Awards 2020 | This is a historical treasure-trove of information about, pretty much, everything and everywhere. It is almost impossible to put down, with fascinating stories tumbling over each other. Its crisp and clear writing plays well with the photographs and illustrations. It is destined to become a favourite for curious young minds.
This is an excellent first information book: full of facts that will intrigue the very young and spark their imagination. Each page features a different wild animal, native to the savannah, as a sturdy pop-up that will surprise and delight with each reading. We meet and learn about lions, giraffes, hippos, meerkats and elephants as well as about their shared habitat. The animals are captured in lines of rhyming text, with extra lines providing additional factual information. The illustrations are bold and eye-catching, and it all adds up to an excellent package.
Testing friends’ and family members’ knowledge of birds, animals and insects is great fun with this clever riddle book, created by the team at National Geographic Kids. Pages of ‘What am I?’ questions are followed by pages with the answers, each illustrated with attractive colour photos of the relevant animals. The questions are intriguing, designed to get you thinking logically alongside those that are calling up remembered facts. Once thing’s for certain, you’ll learn lots of interesting information about lots of very different animals. Oh, and if you’re thinking about C*******s presents, this is definitely worth putting on a list!
From the author of Seeing Stars which detailed all 88 known constellations for older children, this stylish and sturdy book introduces just six of the most familiar and recognisable constellations to the very young. Young children like nothing better than books which invite them to guess what is under the flap and here each constellation is introduced by the line-connected star cluster sparkling against the deep blue background of the night sky. As you read aloud the verbal clues, children are asked to guess the creature and the answer is revealed, with more lines filling in the details of the animal, under the flap, alongside more information about the constellation and its major stars. Flaps can be quite flimsy and often considered unsuitable for classroom use but, in this case, it is a solid full-page fold-out that will withstand multiple uses. Children will definitely be inspired to do their own star gazing and to investigate further. Personally, this has helped enormously to understand how constellations got their names and to see the animal properly revealed. I still wonder, however, at the imagination of the Ancients that first connected those dots!
