The Everything Kids’ Science Bundle

The Everything Kids' Science Bundle, credited to Sheri Amsel, is a big science book for 8 year olds that's full of questions to answer and things to try at home.

What happens

It brings four Everything Kids' books together in one place. Between them they cover astronomy, the human body, science experiments and the weather.

Astronomy comes first. It opens with a nursery rhyme most children know, then asks whether they've ever really thought about its second line. From there it heads out through galaxies, gravity and the Big Bang, then back to the sun and our own planet.

It talks straight to your reader the whole way. How many stars do you think there are? Can you name the colours of a rainbow? Why don't you feel dizzy when the Earth is spinning? Nearly every paragraph asks them something.

Mixed in are fun facts, word definitions, riddles and things to do. Your reader could make a spinning galaxy from a pinwheel and some glow-in-the-dark paint. They could pop a paper bag to get a feel for the Big Bang, or get a group of friends to be the planets and orbit round a sun.

It's a lovely way to make big ideas feel close to home. Light years get compared to what a farmer might mean by a light year, and gravity gets explained with the flying swings at a funfair.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The explanations come in long paragraphs with words like centrifugal force and sextillion, and a few of the activities need a grown-up nearby (spinning a tennis ball round on a string, for one). It's an American book too, so temperatures are in Fahrenheit and distances in miles.

So it's probably best shared, at least to start with. It isn't a book to read from cover to cover in one sitting, and it doesn't need to be.

Is your reader the sort who asks "but why?" about absolutely everything? This could keep them going for months.

What to read next

If they want more hands-on science after this, Catch the Wind, Harness the Sun is packed with energy projects, and it opens by asking your reader to imagine a day without electricity.