As this book says in the introduction, growing up is not something you should rush into.
So, if you are not ready for the serious stuff of life yet, you may be interested in having a nosey here.
Just a few of the important things included are: how to booby trap a drink , how to shinny up a tree, frozen underpants, the one-person piggy back , great cell phone shots and so on.
The Encyclopedia of Immaturity is a chunky (nearly 200 pages) book of activities, pranks and info that you can’t miss if you enjoy the ridiculous.
A sample of the many amazing New Zealanders who have achieved fame in their lifetime. This anthology covers sporting greats such as Sir Colin Meads, Scott Dixon and Barbara Kendall; Artists, including Sir Peter Jackson, Rhys Darby and Margaret Mahy; Adventurers Sir Edmund Hillary and Jean Batten; Scientists Ingrid Visser and Sir William Pickering; and many more. This book has concise stories of their lives and accomplishments, with some very funny anecdotes. There are great illustrations by cartoonist Bruce Potter who draws outlandish caricatures for us to laugh at.
Is there a link between the world of science and magic? You bet! I have just come across this book Magic Up Your Sleeve by Helaine Becker and was really amazed at the connection between science and magic! It has lots of activities to show how simple scientific stuff can lead into the world of illusion and magic. There are cool illustrations and easy to follow instructions as well. I’m sure you’ll leave your audiences baffled and amazed! You’ll get quick results and all you need are common household materials. So head on down to the library and check out this book and start abracadabraing away!
In the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland, dragons are referred to as wurms, or lindwurms.
They have wings and two legs. Their bodies are 15 metres long, or more, and their two legs are not strong enough to support the entire weight of their bodies: so Scandinavian dragons drag their bodies along the ground, leaving a trail of slime and dead plants.
They have smooth, impenetrable hides, and soft, vulnerable underbellies. They have sharp talons as strong as iron.
They live in human burial mounds and abandoned buildings. They love to hoard treasure and can hibernate on top of a pile of treasure for many years.
Scandinavian dragons are intelligent and often capable of speech. They are also greedy and easily made angry. They breathe fire and inject venom with their fangs!
If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find out more about dragons in The Dragon Companion: An Encyclopedia by Carole Wilkinson. This is an adult book, but it is okay for kids to read too. All the facts in this post were taken from this book.
Books written for kids about dragons that you might like to read are:
The Dragon of Trelian by Michelle Knudsen
Fangs ‘n’ Fire by Chris Mould
The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit
The Fire Series by Chris D’Lacey
The Dragons of Wayward Crescent by Chris D’Lacey
How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
Do you enjoy the Horrible History books? Are you short of time? Here is a new series of Horrible Histories in condensed comic book format. You can now gather all those essential, gory, historical, but humorous facts about Knights, Egypt and the Tudors super quick.
Well here it is – Ask Me Anything – the book that tells you everything you have ever wanted to know.
Its stuffed with lists, trivia, facts, fun and lots of info on just about everything you can think of. So put it to the test and ask a question.
What about:
Will the sun shine forever?
How many oceans are there?
Why don’t some plants have flowers?
Do snakes feel slimy?
Why are most gases invisible?
Everything you have ever wanted to know wrapped up in one book.
Do you like doodling, cutting, sticking or just splattering and splashing? Well I think you have the makings of an artist! So why don’t you wake up the artist in you and check out the book My Very First Art Book by Rosie Dickins and Sarah Courtauld. It has loads of fun artsy stuff for you to do and it has easy to follow instructions and illustrations. Who knows you might be the next Van Gogh in the making.
Most of us are either left or right handed but did you know that you are also left or right eyed? Well believe it or not most humans also have a dominant eye.
If you want to find out which is your dominant eye then this is what you need to do.
Hold your arm up and place your thumb and fingers together to create a hole or circle. (Hold your arm away from your body).
Now look through this hole with both eyes at a small distant object - such as a light switch on the other side of the room. Position your hand so the object is right in the middle of the hole and keep still.
Now close one eye. Did the distant object appear to move? If so, the eye you closed is your dominant eye. If not, your open eye is the dominant eye.
Open both eyes again and realign the hole and this time close the other eye. What happened this time?
You don’t normally notice this preference because your brain usually has no problem combining the separate images from each eye into one useful picture. Sometimes it might pay more attention to one eye, then the other, depending on which is more interesting or important.
Are all right-handed people right eyed?
No, but more people are right handed than left and more people have a dominant right eye too, so most right handed people are right eyed. But there are also lots of people with cross dominance (left eye, right hand and vice versa) but most of the time it makes very little difference.
You can find out lots of stuff about your body in The Surfing Scientist 40 Super Human Body Tricks. All you need is your body, some household items and an appetite for fun.
100 Most Awesome Things on the Planet is the title of this new book. It is divided into 2 sections – Awesome Natural Wonders and Awesome Human Creations. It’s not a huge book but has great photos and blocks of facts for each awesome thing. There is even an “awesome rating” for each entry. Some of the top rated awesomes are Grand Canyon, Monarch Migrations, Blue Whales, Solar Eclipse, Nanomachines, Blackbird(a plane), Spirit of Australia (a boat) and Bagger293. If you want to read more about these or see what the other 92 are, reserve a copy.
Here it is – The Naughty Kid’s Book of Nature.
Nice kids like to learn all about how the caterpillar turns into a butterfly or a tadpole into a frog but naughty kids want to know about squashed hedgehogs, dead pukeko, blood, guts and maggots and let’s not forget the rats.
So come on a journey through New Zealand from the north to the south taking a look at all the animals along the way. Start asking all those questions you have wanted to ask. What’s special about them, why are they the way they are and how long have they been here?
At the end of each section there are a set of question so you can test yourself on how much you learnt or you can just use the keywords to search for more books in the library or on the internet and find out more information about each animal.
With chapter titles such as Road Kill, Stuffed Ones and Living Dead you can see how exciting, smelly, amazing, revolting and wonderful the world of nature can be.
