Factopia
by Kate Hale, illustrated by Andy Smith
Interest age: 10 to 14
Reading age: 10+
Published by Britannica Books, 2020
About this book
The perfect book for any fact-lover, Factopia contains 400 different facts to discover and be wowed by, covering almost anything from nature to robots to the human body to space. Did you know that around 12% of people dream in black and white? That the Earth hums? That there is a hotel in America shaped like a potato?
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. Rather than being grouped together by subject matter, the facts are connected in more unusual ways: readers are encouraged to literally follow the trail between the facts, which could lead from a fact about a mountain in Peru called Rainbow Mountain to facts about actual rainbows; then from how rainbows are circles to facts about other things that are circles.
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. Not only is there loads of fun stuff to learn, but it offers a different kind of reading experience and encourages a little thinking ‘outside the box’.
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