Great gift choice for the auntie (or Uncle) who’s not sure what their nephews and nieces are playing with - I’ve not got it wrong yet ? In a sense it was easy to let my imagination run wild and find fun and exciting links to different, unexpected topics.

For example, did you know that magpies, elephants and chimpanzees can recognise themselves in a mirror? Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Hop from topic to topic in unexpected and hilarious ways, and discover extraordinary facts about space, bones, dinosaurs, goats, spiders, crocodiles, sharks, robots, Ancient Rome, kings and queens, pharaohs, and more. We absolutely loved diving in and following our fact-hunting noses to track down the obscure and the unbelievable.When she’s not hunting for new facts, Kate enjoys gardening, playing video games and planning road trips to national parks. Andy Smith is an award-winning illustrator, and studied illustration at the University of Brighton and the Royal College of Art, London. So, dip in and out, or follow the trail from beginning to end, or even take one of the side branches to skip ahead or back to a different connected fact. After writing the first book, I thought I could never beat the fact that a squid’s brain is shaped like a donut.

Sprinkled through the book are ‘fact frenzies’, where facts are linked with hilarious and unexpected word connections. It covers just about everything about space, bones, dinosaurs, goats, spiders, crocodiles, sharks, robots, Romans, kings and queens, pharaohs, and much, much more!

I recommend this book to 5+ (because you can read this book to others as well as reading it for yourself; make sure you let them see the pictures and trace the line! But there’s not just one trail through these pages: sometimes your path branches and you can choose to jump to a totally different (but still connected) part of the book. Follow an ingenious trail of 400 facts about everything from secret recipes and escape artists to hidden treasure and in. About the Author: Andy Smith is an award-winning illustrator, and studied illustration at the University of Brighton and the Royal College of Art, London. Each fact is presented as a snippet on the page, with an accompanying illustration or photograph – but one of the things that makes this book stand out is it’s ‘follow-the-trail’ system.

This is a fabulously fun way to learn new things and encourage inquisitiveness – adults and children alike will find themselves dipping into it for years to come. Global in scope, it features a broad spectrum of culture, civilisations, people and places – all verified by Encyclopaedia Britannica and checked by sensitivity readers. I hope that readers realize that there’s amazing information all around them—no matter if it’s about cockroaches, chickens, or clouds.His work combines illustration and typography to create images that have humour, energy and optimism executed with a handmade, hand-printed, tactile feel. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. For the kid who want to know why and how, who loves having random information at their finger tips and just loves to learn new things about their world - this is fantastic fun. There are tons of different subjects within the book; breakfasts, space, animals, dinosaurs, light, weather, crystals – anything you could possibly think of.

There’s a great balance of subject matter, combined with the slightly gross, creepy-crawly type information that children love so much. Factopia is designed as a trail of 400 facts, which weave and wind together, in a bunch of different ways. This wittily illustrated book is the perfect gift to inspire and delight curious children aged 8–12.

But I tried to ask myself really crazy questions to get inspired, like: “I wonder how many hamburgers a T. I grabbed this one to read with my toddlers because they enjoy learning and have a million questions!