By now you're probably back at school (or are a parent once again locked into the school run) and are dreading all the homework and all that 'learning' stuff teachers insist on you doing, but console yourself with a really incredible book that makes learning fun and completely engaging.
We've used those words many times to describe Wide Eyed Editions' publications, but with "The Curiositree: Human World" by Amanda Wood, Mike Jolley and Andres Lozano, they truly have pulled out all the stops to produce something remarkable and special.
"Human World" is a rich and diverse slice of history, chronicling - well, us! Humans - and like a soothing balm for what you read about in the news or on the internet, this book gorgeously celebrates what makes us amazing as a species, celebrates our achievements and marks our passage through time as we constantly evolve and learn.
Each section and spread in the book is so gorgeously illustrated and rich with descriptive detail that you won't get through it in one sitting (so it's rather lovely that the Hardback edition of this book features some very useful marker ribbons so you can keep your place).
As a reference book it'll be invaluable for kids who are taking up history as a subject for the first time, pretty much at every level right up to teenage years.
As a book to just dive into and lose hours to, it's also brilliant and one of the things we love to champion on the blog is a non-fiction title that is just as much fun to read for pleasure as it is to accompany school work.
Amanda and Mike have collated and curated an amazing collection of facts covering just about every continent, and every major era of history showing what we used to eat, how we used to live and how humankind thrived as we began to discover more and more about our world. It even shows how we can utilise technology and enhanced learning in the future (but I really truly hope that there'll always be books like this around, whatever virtual reality future we might imagine).
Andres' illustrations are also utterly brilliant, characterful and colourful (we particularly loved his cutaways of buildings and dwellings).
It's a massive book too, and really reminded me of the sort of non-fiction titles I used to love getting for Christmas as a kid (is it too early to mention that this would make a perfect Christmas gift for your inquisitive littlies? Possibly!)
Stunning book, absolutely unmissable.
"Human World" by Amanda Wood, Mike Jolley and Andres Lozano is out now, published by Wide Eyed Editions (kindly supplied for review).