By Brenda Scott Royce
Published by National Geographic Kids
Review
What do you do with a kids' coffee table book full of fascinating trivia? Let everyone in the family pick a fact to read each day for a week, then build your favorite one out of LEGO bricks!
We had The Coolest Stuff on Earth sitting out for a while, and it got flipped through, but not really engaged. I didn't push T to read it, but put it on the shelf for a more opportune time. That came last week. T built LEGO versions of almost all the media he imbibed and was excited about the idea of building something out of a book of the coolest stuff in the world.
The Coolest Stuff on Earth lends itself well to skimming. Large color photographs capture the attention and short text delivers information in easily digestible chunks. The book is divided by subject matter, such as animals, sports, or travel; a table of contents and an index allow readers to seek out specific information easily. T, his dad, and I each gravitated toward different sections to
select the pages we wanted to read. T's favorite fact was that astronaut helmets are coated in gold (gold reflects the sun's rays). I had no idea that training rabbits to hop over fences is a professional sport (rabbits hop over increasingly higher barriers at trainers' urging). T's dad selected a recently rediscovered 600-year-old Islamic text to recreate (the world-renowned libraries of Timbuktu were hidden for protection). We all had fun and came away with a little more knowledge of our world.
Review
What do you do with a kids' coffee table book full of fascinating trivia? Let everyone in the family pick a fact to read each day for a week, then build your favorite one out of LEGO bricks!
We had The Coolest Stuff on Earth sitting out for a while, and it got flipped through, but not really engaged. I didn't push T to read it, but put it on the shelf for a more opportune time. That came last week. T built LEGO versions of almost all the media he imbibed and was excited about the idea of building something out of a book of the coolest stuff in the world.
The Coolest Stuff on Earth lends itself well to skimming. Large color photographs capture the attention and short text delivers information in easily digestible chunks. The book is divided by subject matter, such as animals, sports, or travel; a table of contents and an index allow readers to seek out specific information easily. T, his dad, and I each gravitated toward different sections to
National Geographic's bright, interesting, large-scale book of facts is 
something fun to flip through. Maybe you'll see something that you want to learn more about. Maybe you just want to bone up on your trivia. Or maybe you'll find something to build out of LEGO bricks. If your kid is a trivia lover this will likely be a win. It's going back on our coffee table for convenient reading and further inspiration.
Note: A review copy was provided upon request for the purpose of this honest review.
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