A Horrid Factbook: Horrid Henry's Bodies by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
| A Horrid Factbook: Horrid Henry's Bodies by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Ruth Ng
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| Summary: Chock-full of interesting facts and figures. A fun read for little fact lovers. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 96 | Date: February 2011 |
| Publisher: Orion Children's Books | |
| ISBN: 978-1444001624 | |
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When you eat or chew, did you know that little clumps of earwax fall out of your ears! And in a lifetime you produce enough urine to fill about 450 baths! Do you know how loud the loudest burp was? Or what a bogey is made of? If these are the sort of facts and figures, complete with a handful of Horrid Henry and Tony Ross' illustrations, that would rock your child's world then this is the book for you!
Horrid Henry's presence felt, to me, just a little bit forced in amongst all the interesting nuggets of knowledge. However, I'm sure that just the fact that it's his book of bodily information will entice many readers to give it a try, which is a good thing. I could imagine plenty of early readers hiding away in their rooms memorising all these delights about saliva and nits and finger nails and brains to delight their family over dinner! It is purely a factbook, so there are no snippets of stories, merely occasional facts that relate to various characters in the Horrid Henry books.
Tony Ross' fabulous drawings can be found on every page, and they really liven up the book. Some of them made me laugh out loud, such as the picture of Henry sitting sadly on the toilet with a long beard and moustache (because you spend three years of your life on the toilet!) and the one of Henry flashing his bottom (your biggest muscle). Some of them are quite disgusting, such as the lizard that squirts blood out of its eyelids to scare off enemies, but they certainly make the facts memorable.
I spent a fun evening reading out entertaining facts to my husband (well, I was enjoying myself!) and I have picked it up a few times since whilst waiting for the kettle to boil or the bathroom to be free. There's a chapter at the end that my four year old loved called Can you do this? which saw my little girl and I trying to lick our elbows and stand balanced on one leg with our eyes shut. Not at the same time fortunately! There's lots of fun to be had, and interesting things to learn about human and animal bodies. It works well as a book to share with those not yet reading independently, but I expect it will be most popular amongst early readers who can read it for themselves.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.
Further reading suggestion: For more fun facts try Why is Snot Green? by Glenn Murphy. We've also enjoyed A Horrid Factbook: Crazy Creatures by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross.
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You can read more book reviews or buy A Horrid Factbook: Horrid Henry's Bodies 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 A Horrid Factbook: Horrid Henry's Bodies by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross at Amazon.com.
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