Everyday Journeys Of Ordinary Things

“This book is really, really good. It’s got lots of interesting facts, and it’s explained really nicely. I’m just looking at a page here, ‘Where do clothes come from?’ It’s the journey of a pair of jeans and there are little facts—like where the word denim comes from, ‘de Nîmes’ in France—and then the whole process, from growing the cotton right through to shipping it to shops. The book looks at how the internet or GPS work, how electricity works when you turn on your lights. The book is just raising awareness that everything we do, at any moment in our lives, has a big knock-on effect: somebody, somewhere in another part of the world has done something, has grown something, something has been burned to provide electricity. It gives us a better understanding of our context in the whole natural world which I think, often, even as adults we don’t fully appreciate.” Read more...

The Best Science Books for Kids: the 2020 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize

Mike Kendall, Scientist