The Magic Carpet’s Guide to Earth’s Forbidden Places

Even in today’s super-connected world, there are places that remain mysterious and inaccessible. They might be physically impossible to reach, like the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, completely off limits like Area 51 or the Queen’s bedroom, or incredibly dangerous, like the Valley of Death in Kamchatka, Russia – where the air is filled with invisible poisonous gas.

Flying an imaginary carpet over some of the most forbidden places in the world (and underground, in the case of the Paris catacombs), readers will learn about places such as Queimada Grande, or Snake Island, off the coast of Brazil which (you guessed it) teems with poisonous snakes, and the Vatican’s secret archives which contain 35,000 volumes of historical papers, strictly forbidden for the general public to view.

Gorgeously illustrated throughout in a slightly hallucinatory and dreamy colour scape by Whooli Chen, this is a wonderful and intriguing guide to some of the mysterious places in the world is perfect for curious kids and anyone with a sense of wonder.