Showing posts with label non fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non fiction. Show all posts

Wednesday 24 July 2019

3 Children's Books To Celebrate The 50th Anniversary Of The Moon Landing

With 2019 marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission's successful moon landing, it's no surprise that authors, illustrators and publishers have been hard at work producing some amazing non-fiction books by way of celebration. Whilst there are many children's books already available on the subject, it's always nice to welcome new ones into the fold, especially given that current design trends favour beautiful illustrations over stock photography. So, here are my three current favourites on the topic:

Balloon To The Moon by Gill Arbuthnott and Christopher Nielsen

Anyone who is familiar with Big Picture Press books will have some idea of what to expect: a large format, hardback book which couples easy-to-read but insightful information with the very best of illustrations. In this case its the retro-styled images of Christopher Nielsen which evoke an age gone by: the era of the great space race. The vintage drawings might remind an older reader of a time when astronauts were just the fantasy of sci-fi comics - younger readers will simply delight in the colourful depictions of a wealth of scientific and historic facts and stories.

'Balloon To The Moon' also cleverly employs a countdown to the moment when man finally stepped foot on the moon: it begins with chapter 10, running all the way through to chapters 3, 2, 1 and then Lift-Off, Lunar Orbit and Re-Entry. Along the way, Gill Arbuthnott tells the story of everything that had to happen before Neil Armstrong could step out of that lunar landing module and utter his immortal words. Filled with facts and figures, this book provides accessible, bite-size chunks of space travel history - children of all ages will learn something from this stellar publication.


'Where Once We Stood' by Christopher Riley and Martin Impey

New publishing house Harbour Moon Publishing are making a great first step with this visual feast of a book. Illustrator Martin Impey's pencil drawings and watercolour paintings take centre stage in this pleasingly large-scale paperback book. This isn't just a book with one or two pictures in it; every one of its 128 pages features multiple, largely monochrome but highly evocative, images. This book certainly is a visual treat - even if the text were ignored one could spend a great deal of time exploring its pages, wondering at one of the world's greatest dreams come true.

But there is text in this book too, and film producer, director and writer Christopher Riley presents the real-life conversations of the Apollo astronauts alongside urgent, present tense narrative. This combination makes for compelling reading - readers, helped along by the illustrations, will easily imagine that they are there with the astronauts, or in the control room, at least. Featuring the voices of astronauts from all 6 successful Apollo moon landings, this book might take a younger reader a while to make their way through as they savour both the text and the pictures. That's not to say there is too much, rather that this book is something unique, being unlike other non-fiction books, and therefore necessitating a different kind of reading. 'Where Once We Stood' is the kind of book that will be taken off the shelf time and time again and is an absolute must for any space-loving child or classroom where space is being taught about - you won't find anything else like this out there.


Neil Armstrong: First Man On The Moon by Alex Woolf (with Illustrations by Luisa Uribe, George Ermos and Nina Jones)

The latest in Stripes' Trailblazers series, Alex Woolf's biography of Neil Armstrong, presented in a novel-sized paperback, is the perfect thing for KS2 readers who want to know more about one of the world's most famous men. Stepping right back into his childhood and following Armstrong's life through to his last days, the story of how one man became the astronaut to first step foot on the moon is told compellingly yet simply - I can't imagine a reader wanting to even put this down.

The main story is interspersed with fact files, illustrations and other asides which, far from interrupting the flow of the narrative, add to it and provide a greater level of insight than one might expect from a book like this. Young readers will not only close the book more knowledgeable about one of the greatest feats of mankind, they will also leave feeling inspired by the level of commitment and hard work that Neil Armstrong demonstrated throughout his life - Woolf surreptitiously draws life lessons out of Armstrong's story, giving the book another dimension altogether. The book finishes nicely with a word on the legacy of both Armstrong and the Apollo missions, encouraging readers to look ahead to how 'spaceship earth' might be protected in the future.

That's all for now, but watch this space for more space-themed children's books - I have a whole shelf's-worth that I'd love to share with you! Here's a sneak peek of some of them:

Friday 30 November 2018

Book Review: 'Football School Seasons 1, 2 and 3' by Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton

Knowledge-rich curricula are all the rage in schools at the moment, and rightly so. And what better than knowledge-rich books to supplement what's being taught at school? I'll tell you: really interesting, really fun knowledge-rich books. Such books as Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton have written together: the Football School books.

The front cover of each of the three books carries the tagline 'Where football explains the world'. And although on each book the word 'explains' is crossed out and replaced (by 'rules', 'saves' and 'tackles') it really isn't just rhetoric. These books truly transcend football by using it as a conduit through which to explore a whole world of general knowledge as well as the football trivia.

The three books all follow the same format, kicking off with a contents page designed like a school timetable covering traditional subjects such as PSHE, History, Geography as well as some more specialist ones like Psychology, Philosophy, Business Studies and Computer Science.

Football lovers will devour the wealth of facts about football teams, players, team strips and will enjoy picking up playing tips too: there's a whole section on the psychology of taking a penalty, for example!

But the books' really majesty is in the fact that they are full of general knowledge that is unrelated to football. From sections about World War 1 to profiles of famous footballing countries such as Brazil readers will come away knowing about much more than just football. Book 3 even has a whole section about sleep which introduces its readers to terminology such as 'transitional phase' and 'circadian rhythm'.

And, just to make sure that some of the information is remembered, each section (or lesson) ends with a quiz about the chapter. With a multiple choice format these quizzes don't just focus on the football information but also on the general knowledge featured in the books.

But this sort of book wouldn't get a look-in without illustrations - Spike Gerrell's cartoon style makes for that winning formula of facts plus funny pictures; that format made popular by the Horrible Histories books. Children who love those and who are fans of books such as Diary of the Wimpy kid will be immediately drawn to these books. And it's not just the illustrations and the texts that appeal - the layout keeps things fresh with every page has its own interesting layout. Boredom will not be an issue whilst children (or adults) read these books.

With their simple yet engaging language the Football School books are pretty much an essential for any school bookshelf. Not that they would stay on the shelf for long - these are the exact sort of books that non-fiction lovers will be queuing up to borrow.

Tuesday 23 October 2018

Guest Post: How To Write Non-Fiction by Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton

Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton are the authors of the Football School series (as well as newspaper articles and several grown up books about maths, football, and... colouring in). Currently on book number three in the Football School series, Alex and Ben are experts at writing about facts and information. Here they give some advice to teachers and children about how to write those tricky non-fiction pieces of writing.

1) Choose a subject that you are passionate about. If you love something, then this passion will come through in the text.

2) Read! Non-fiction is writing with facts in it. Before you start writing you need to find facts about the subject you are writing about. One way to do this is to read: you can read websites, magazine articles and books. Make notes on what you read.

3) Speak to people! Another way to get facts is to ask people questions. For example, just say you want to write about pizza. You might want to go to your local pizzaria and ask the pizza chef some questions. They will know a lot about pizzas! Write down what they say.

4) Plan! Once you have done your research, you should have a few pages of notes. Read the notes and work out roughly plan the text. If you have several facts, choose a sensible order for the facts.

5) Clarity! The best writing is clear writing. There are tricks to writing clearly. One is to write in short sentences. Another is always to use simple language. Even if the ideas are complicated, keep the language simple.
6) Repetition. Avoid repeating the same words again and again, since this will make your text boring to read.

7) Don’t make assumptions. In other words, don't assume that your readers will know as much as you. If you refer to something that happened in the past, be sure to explain exactly what did happen the past so the reader isn’t left confused.

8) Do not use technical terms that only a specialist will understand. Make sure that every word you use would be understandable to a classmate who doesn’t share the same interests as you.

9) Don’t use cliche. A cliche is a phrase that is over-used, like “cool as a cucumber”, or “110 per cent”. Cliches make the text feel predictable and boring.

10) Have a conclusion. It is always nice to end a piece of text with either a summary of what has come before, or a final thought.

Tuesday 26 December 2017

Book Review: 'Urban Jungle' by Vicky Woodgate

Publishers Big Picture Press do not disappoint: they produce very big books full of wonderful pictures and this one by Vicky Woodgate is no exception. 'Urban Jungle' is an oversized non-fiction book which explores the fauna of the world's major cities.

Did you know that Spinybacked orbweavers can be found in Lima, Peru? Or that Milk sharks patrol the waters around Mumbai? Or that Vancouver is home to Bobcats, Coyotes, seals, bears, skunks, turtles and Rufous hummingbirds? With each turn of a page the reader encounters the surprising inhabitants of some of the world's busiest cities and surrounding urban areas. 

Each page begins with clear geographical summary of each city, a map of where in the country or continent it can be found and a plethora of stylistic animal illustrations. A particularly nice touch is the 'Animal Stories' box that can be found on each page where a particular animal is highlighted, sometimes with a funny story that made the news and often with tales of historical significance or surprising facts about the creatures.   

The book is split into sections based on continent and each part opens with a double page map - the book doesn't skimp the geography side of things. Urban Jungle definitely isn't just a book about animals; it's a brand new beast combining an Atlas with a natural history book, although it perhaps couldn't be used as either - it must be treated as something different.

With publishers pushing he boundaries of what non-fiction books look like this is an exciting time to be a child who loves to gather facts. With maps and animals being popular obsessions for primary aged children this book is sure to be a hit both at home and in the classroom and will hold up to repeat reads such is the wealth of information contained.