Horrid Henry's World Records by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
| Horrid Henry's World Records by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: Margaret Young
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| Summary: A fun mix of factual world records along with some wild claims to various records by Horrid Henry. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 112 | Date: September 2013 |
| Publisher: Orion Childrens | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1444009217 | |
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My son chose this book because he does like Horrid Henry, and he especially loves books with facts. As a parent, I have tried to supply my children with a wide choice of reading material, but I have to admit, I have leaned more towards fiction than non fiction simply because I mistakenly assumed it would be more fun. Girls do tend to prefer fiction, so I based my choices upon my own childhood reading habits. But when my sons began to beg for books a bout real things, I saw the error of my ways.
My sons do love fiction, but they grow bored with all fiction. They want a steady supply of non fiction as well. This book is a fun blend, with enough snippets from Horrid Henry to keep the child who prefers fiction reading, and enough facts to keep the non-fiction lover going. I especially like the fact that by appealing to both groups, this book may very well encourage children to try new things. Having read most of the Horrid Henry books, we found several records that related to many of the stories as well. It is a nice quality book too. It has a lovely hardback binding, plenty of illustrations and covers a very wide variety of interests. Overall, I think this book is excellent and would have given this five stars if my eight year old son had not caught a wee mistake. This has cost the book a star in out rating, but we would still recommend it. As he is the one who caught the mistake, and certainly the most knowledgeable in the matter of Horrid Henry, I will let him complete review.
Billy's Review:
When I first opened this book, I thought it was all fiction - pretend records about Henry and his friends, so I thought the other records listed might be fake too. My Mom and I looked up some records online and we soon realised this book is a mix of fiction and non fiction. It has some funny records for Horrid Henry and his friends, but most of the records are real. My favourite record was the world's tallest man. Robert Pershing was 2.72 metres tall. He could stand on the ground and look into people's bedroom windows upstairs. I thought this might be a lot of fun, but then my Mom pointed out other things wouldn't be so much fun. You would always have to walk all hunched up in an ordinary house, buying clothes would be difficult and it would be difficult to fit into a car. My brother's favourite part was the world's biggest pants parade when 116 showed everyone their underpants for a charity event in London.
One thing I didn't like about the book was the claim that the Indian Cobra was the world's most venomous snake. This is not true. A sea snake called Hydrophis belcheri has the most deadly venom of any snake on earth. It is also called the faint banded sea snake, which is a lot easier to say. It is not aggressive though and bites are very rare. The Indian cobra is not even the most venomous land snake. The inland Taipan has the most deadly venom of any known land snake in the world. One bite could kill 100 humans. It's poison is 50 times stronger than an Indian cobra. This snake is afraid of people though and will try to get away. It is very good idea to let it. The cobra isn't the biggest killer of humans in the snake world either. Each site we check lists a different snake as responsible for the most human deaths, but none of them listed cobras. The top contenders were; the saw scaled viper: Echis carinatus, Russel's Viper Daboia russelii and the lance head pit viper Bothrops alternatus. I did like this book a lot, but now I wonder if they got any other facts wrong.
In spite of this, I would still recommend this book. Most of the records are correct and some are really fun like the tall man and the supersized chocolate bar. If you like some of the records you can always find out more on the computer. I had a lot of fun looking up many of the records and learned about a lot of things. It is a very easy book to read and quite funny as well.
If this book appeals then we can also recommend:
A Horrid Factbook: Horrid Henry's Bodies by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
Ripley's Believe It or Not 2013 by Robert Leroy Ripley
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You can read more book reviews or buy Horrid Henry's World Records by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Horrid Henry's World Records by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross at Amazon.com.
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