When I was young, I’d spend hour after hour on the living room floor, flipping through the World Book Encyclopedia, the Guinness Book of Records, the Book of Lists and various almanacs and reference books. For kids, there’s something about having a huge variety of information in front of you that’s very compelling (and sets you on your quest to become a Jeopardy contestant).
These days, I’m a little jealous of my kids, who have been reading the National Geographic Kids Almanac for 2011. With nearly 350 pages of everything from survival and adventure stories to the science and biology of the world around us, the 2011 almanac is a book I’ve seen my kids pick up time and time again. They love reading things they’ve learned to each other and have a great time trying to outdo each other on quizzes they create for each other from information they’ve read.
The editors of the almanac have done a tremendous job picking out stories that are interesting to kids and have supported all the articles with photos and illustrations that make flipping through the book such a jackpot of information, that it’s tough to decide what to read about.
But this almanac isn’t just world capitals, geography formations and world history timelines. The Kids Almanac includes “Homework Help” (things like tips on writing effective letters and essays), mini-interviews with real-world scientists and URLs to information that supports articles in the book.
As a companion to the Kids Almanac, be sure to check out Weird But True, 300 Outrageous Facts. Your children will love reading gems like the facts that male ostriches can roar like a lion, hippo sweat is red and 298 other fun and fascinating tidbits.
Disclosure: National Geographic sent GeekDad review copies of these books.
