1,500 interesting facts to amaze kids Fascinate your friends and family with 1,500 mind-boggling facts about EVERTYTHING – the perfect gift for curious kids aged 7+. With fun illustrations and bursting with brain-bending facts on animals, the natural world, science, space, history, sports, art, music, and more – this book is the ultimate boredom-buster. Top up on trivia with amazing facts like these… The average person will blink more than 500 million times in their lifetime. The fastest mammals on land, cheetahs, can run up to 120 km/h (70 mph) in short bursts. It can take them half an hour to catch their breath after that. The world’ s largest chocolate bar weighed around 5,792 kg (12,770 lb) – that’ s as much as an elephant!---from the publisher
160 pages 978-0008757632 Ages 7 and up
Keywords: facts, information, animals, science, space, history, art, sports, trivia, 7 year old, 8 year old, 9 year old, 10 year old, If You Liked Random Facts, If You Liked National Geographic Awesome Facts, If You Liked Weird But True
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There is an old saying, "Curiosity killed the cat" yet being curious is how our young people find out about the world around them and how it works. There is also a response to that old saying - "But satisfaction brought it back" - and this little book would seem to be the key to that.
All sorts of topics have a double-page spread of interesting facts devoted to them, interspersed with line drawings and other formatting techniques so young readers are not overwhelmed by text.
Although the topics are not organised in any particularly way, there is a clear Contents page to help young readers navigate their way to what interests them - an important information literacy skill for using non fiction - whether that be dinosaurs, sports, dance fever or what's for breakfast. Altogether over 75 separate topics are covered and each has a list of fascinating one-sentence facts that not only answer questions but sparks further curiosity. For example, discovering that even though Cleopatra was a famous Egyptian pharaoh, she was actually of Greek descent and revered it might lead the reader to investigate not just all things Ancient Egypt but to read Jackie French's new book Cleopatra: The Girl Who Would Be King, the first in her new series Heroes in the Ancient World. Others might be intrigued by the fact that bananas are the most commonly eaten fruit in the world, and not only want to know why, but conduct a school survey to investigate if it's true for that population.
Beyond those personal investigations there is scope for this to be used in the classroom or library to capture interest in topics beyond the curriculum, to encourage exploration of the library and develop information literacy skills. Each week, focus on a couple of diverse facts (so that the potential for attracting interest is maximised) and exploit those. Perhaps you might post Fact #1164 that "Constellations (patterns of stars) rise in the east and set in the west, like the Sun" and invite students to discover more about the 88 constellations at 523.8; investigate the stories behind their names mostly deriving from Ancient Greek and Mesopotamian mythology; compare the European maps of the stars to those of Australia's indigenous peoples; compare the night skies of the northern hemisphere; investigate the significance of the Southern Cross and how to locate it; perhaps even delve into astrology or wherever else the pathway takes. Then, as you create the role model of questions and possible leads, students with particular interests could build their own to encourage their friends to explore and learn.
So, while, on the surface, this might seem to be one of those books that a young person might like so they can drop fascinating facts into the dinner table conversation, it has far greater possibilities than that. Did you know that the fastest-selling book in history (to date) was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? (Fact #1079). Or that Dr Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham because a friend challenged him to write a story using only 50 different words? (Fact #1068). Imagine the maths that could evolve from that!!
Sometimes, I yearn to be back in a library -and it takes a book like this to evoke that feeling! Definitely one for the teacher's toolkit.
Recommended by: Barbara Braxton, Teacher Librarian, New South Wales AUSTRALIA
See more of her recommendations:
500 Hats http://500hats.edublogs.org/
The Bottom Shelf http://thebottomshelf.edublogs.org/
