A Cool Kid’s Field Guide
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As soon as my kids learned to talk the questions started: who’s that? what’s this? why is that over there? when will be be over there? Now that they’re bigger, though not much bigger, the questions haven’t stopped but now they’re harder ones for me to answer. I love that my kids ask questions, it shows they’re curious and that’s something I want to encourage. But sometimes I don’t have the time or knowledge to answer all their questions.
Well Hammond, those folks who have produced many a world atlas and other reference books, have produced a new series called A Cool Kid’s Field Guide (age 9-12). Kristel from Hammond sent along a copy of A Cool Kid’s Field Guide to Weather as well as A Cool Kid’s Field Guide to Space for my cool kids to try out.
The guides have hard covers and are coil bound at the top, similar to that of a note pad. The actual pages are a heavy card stock versus standard paper you find in books. This ensures the pages don’t rip as kids turn them. Each guide contains a table of contents up front as well as an index in the back, making it easy for you inquisitive kids to find the answers they’re looking for easily.
A Cool Kid’s Field Guide To Weather covers general things about weather (why it’s important, where it happens, how are forecasts made), plus it talks about specific weather conditions like thunderstorms, wind, and global warming to name a few. My kids love that the pages fold out to provide more information on an area they’re interested in. For example, when talking about wind, little flaps fold out, each talking about the different degrees of force wind blows (based on how it’s measured). Each image talks about the wind speed and then uses examples kids can relate to: Force 6 (25-31 mph/40-50 km/hr, large branches move). Based on this new knowledge, my kids now try to guess the wind’s force when we’re out walking.
A Cool Kid’s Field Guide to Space covers general things about space (what is it, what can we see, what’s in space), plus it talks about specific things like people going into space and living there and the solar system to name a few. My kids enjoyed the list of space words at the back. My son also loved the pages that talked about astronauts and space travel. He now wants to be an astronaut (along with a race car designer and knight).
The Cool Kid’s Field Guides are compact and great to take out on walks. The illustrations used keep the pages fun to read. The content is also written with kids in mind; they will learn something new and won’t be bogged down by high-tech or scientific words that will be lost on them. Although the books are aimed at kids 9-12, my 7-year-old enjoyed reading them and my 5-year-old enjoyed the facts learned from them.
The Cool Kid’s Field Guides series also includes titles covering Dinosaurs and Global Warming.
The Cool Kid’s Field Guide to Weather
written by Lisa Regan/illustrated by Tim Hutchinson
age 9-12
26 pages
spiral bound
Hammond
The Cool Kid’s Field Guide to Space
written by Lisa Regan/illustrated by Peter Bull
age 9-12
26 pages
spiral bound
Hammond
Traveling the obstacle course known as my life, with kids, work, writing and all.
Another day. Another thought…or two
Managing Editor & Review Editor at Everythingmom.com
