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Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizieliński (@hipopotam) started a revolution here in the UK, with the publication by Big Picture Press back in 2013 of their now famous Maps. With that beautifully produced book we started to see something of new departure for children’s non-fiction, with publishers realising that there was an appetite for gorgeously illustrated and finely produced information books which didn’t look or feel like school textbooks.

Since then we’ve seen several new non-fiction imprints established, dedicated to bringing us eye-catching, unusual and sumptuous non-fiction for children and young people, such as Wide Eyed Editions and 360 Degrees. This is great news, especially for younger children who report choosing to read non-fiction (42% of 7-11 year olds) almost as much as they do fiction (48.2% of 7-11 year olds, source), though you’d never guess this from the imbalance in titles published and reviewed.

It’s wonderful to see the return of the founders of the non-fiction revolution with a new title, Under Earth, Under Water, a substantial and wide-ranging exploration of what lies beneath the surface of the globe.

Split into two halves, allowing you to start from either end of the book by turning it around to explore either what lies beneath the earth, or under the oceans, this compendium of startling facts and quirky, fresh illustrations makes the most of its large format (a double page spread almost extends to A2), with great visual and verbal detail to pour over and a real sense of going down, down, down across the expanse of the pages.

The Earth pages cover everything from burrowing creatures to plant life in the soil, via extracting natural resources to industrial underground infrastructure. Tunnels, caves, digging up fossils and plate tectonics are all included in this rich and varied buffet brought together though a simple concept – simply exploring what is underneath our feet.

The Water pages explore aquatic life right from the surface down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, ocean geography, human exploration with the aid of diving equipment, the history of submarines and even shipwrecks.

Lavishly produced, with gorgeously thick paper it is a delight to hold this book in your hands. Wonderful design, featuring lots of natural reds and browns in the Earth section and soothing shades of blues and green in the Water section, ensures exploring the diverse content is a visual treat as much as it is a spark for thinking about the world around us in new ways.

My only question mark over Under Earth, Under Water is the lack of an index. Maybe this makes it more like a box of treasures to rummage in and linger over, the sort of space where you can’t be sure what gems you’ll dig up. Although perhaps not a resource from which to clinically extract information, Under Earth, Under Water offers a great deal to explore and a very enjoyable journey to the centre of the earth.

There’s so much we could have “played” in Under Earth, Under Water. We toyed with making submarines, visiting caves, planting seeds to watch roots grow, but in the end the animal burrows won out, and we decided it was time to make our own. This began with papier mache and balloons…

…which when dry were set into a cardboard box frame, and surrounded by layers of “soil” i.e. different coloured felt, to recreate the layering of different soil and rock types.

Then the burrows needed filling! Sylvanian families came to the rescue, along with nature treasures gathered from the garden.

And soon we had a dollshouse with a difference! (Can you spot the bones and other archaeological finds waiting to be dug up from the soil??)

Whilst making our underground burrow we listened to:

Underwater Land by Shel Silverstein and Pat Dailey

Underground Overground Wombling Free….

Going Underground by The Jam

Other activities which might work well alongside reading Under Earth, Under Water include:

Watching live video footage from NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer in the Mariana Trench!

Reading Above and Below by Patricia Hegarty and Hanako Clulow. This books explores similar territory to Under Earth, Under Water – but for slightly younger children – and makes great use of split pages.

Digging to see what’s under the earth in your garden. We did exactly this, as a mini archaeological excavation inspired by Sam & Dave Dig a Hole by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen

Creating your own underwater volcano

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Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of this book by the publisher, Big Picture Press. The book was translated by Antonia Lloyd Jones although she is not credited in the book.

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If you like your prophecies pin sharp then look away now. The 16th century celebrity seer Nostradamus excelled at the exact opposite, couching his predictions in terms so vague as to be largely meaningless. This has not, however, prevented his soothsayings attracting enormous and unending interest, and his book – Les Propheties – has rarely been out of print since it was first published 460 years ago. Uniquely, for a renaissance augur, the writings of Nostradamus are perhaps as popular today as they were four and a half centuries ago.

The post Look away now: The prophecies of Nostradamus appeared first on OUPblog.

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  I Came From the Water Vanita Oelschlager, author Mike Blanc, illustrator 4 Stars ………………………………….. I Came from Water (subtitled), One Haitian Boy’s Incredible Tale of Survival, is a story based on true events, told from the viewpoint of a surviving child. Moses was an infant when floods destroyed his hometown killing many people, including his [...]

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Could we be leaving our children not only a far hotter world, but a more geologically unstable one too?

In Waking the Giant, Bill McGuire argues that now that human activities are driving climate change as rapidly as anything seen in post-glacial times, the sleeping giant beneath our feet is stirring once again. The close of the last Ice Age saw not only a huge temperature hike but also the Earth’s crust bouncing and bending in response to the melting of the great ice sheets and the filling of the ocean basins — dramatic geophysical events that triggered earthquakes, spawned tsunamis, and provoked a series of eruptions from the world’s volcanoes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bill McGuire is Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London. His books include Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet, and Seven Years to Save the Planet.

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Bortz, Fred. 2012. Meltdown! The Nuclear Disaster in Japan and our Energy Future. New York: Lerner.
(Advance Review Copy provided by NetGalley)

Last week, if you asked me to explain the processes and dangers inherent in the creation of nuclear energy, I would be hard-pressed to offer more than a rudimentary explanation.  After reading Meltdown! however, I marveled at how easily I grasped the entire process.  Physicist and author, Dr. Fred Bortz, has a distinct talent for distilling a complex subject into an easily understood concept.

In a compact, colorful book, complete with numerous illustrations and photographs, Fred Bortz recounts the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, sandwiched between solid scientific facts and a global view of the world's energy needs. The reader is left shocked by the massive destruction caused when a natural disaster causes a man-made one of nearly equal proportion. However, the purpose of Meltdown! is not to shock the reader, but to make him think.  Yes, this was a terrible disaster, but what are the alternatives?  Can the world's energy needs be powered by solar? by wind? by coal? by oil?  No, they can't - at least not now.  The readers of Meltdown! (recommended for ages 11-17) will be the decision makers of the world within a few short years. Meltdown! will challenge them to see that the world's problems do not always have easy answers. 

This seems to be the time of year that teachers are assigning many biography and nonfiction reading assignments.  If this were on my shelves now, I would be recommending it highly, though sadly, many teachers will likely dismiss Meltdown! as a book report choice because of the number of its pages, 64. (This gives me a meltdown, as minimum page requirements give me "Minimum Rage.")

This should be required reading, offering an easily understood lesson in nuclear energy, a factual account of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster caused by the massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, and extensive references and supplemental materials.

Teachers, check the Fred Bortz website for great resources including news stories, videos, and classroom connections.

Due on shelves March 1, 2012 - in time for the one-year anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown.

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In my mini series reviewing the books shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2011 next up is How The World Works by Christiane Dorion and Beverley Young

A pop-up book covering a wealth of ground, How The World Works is a tremendous introduction to topics as diverse as the solar system, evolution, plate tectonics, the water cycle, weather systems, photosynthesis and food chains.

Each double page spread covers one theme and explores it using exciting illustrations, illuminating paper engineering and and array of both key and intriguing facts presented in inviting, bite-sized portions. The illustrations have the rich colours and boldness you often see with Barefoot Books (though this is actually published by Templar). The short sections of text make this an undaunting book for young independent readers.

As well of plenty of flaps and tabs, there are lots of instances where the paper engineering really adds to your understanding of the topic under discussion. For example the big bang explosion is a brilliantly executed bit of fold out paper – simple, but very effective as it mimics an explosion. How the continents have drifted over time is beautifully illustrated with a flip book – by flipping the pages we can actually see the continents drifting from the supercontinent Pangaea about 200 million years ago to their current location.

Again, the paper engineering is put to exceptional use to illustrate what happens at different types of plate boundary; Andy Mansfield, the brains behind the pop-up aspect of this book, has created paper tricks that are not only great fun but, but informative and meaningful.

This book contains a subtle but consistent message about how we as humans are having an impact on the earth and what the consequences of our actions will be. In the section on carbon there are tips about how we can reduce our carbon footprint, whilst the pages devoted to how plants work draw attention to the problems caused by deforestation. In the discussion of ocean currents and tides we’re introduced to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, “an area of plastic rubbish twice the size of Texas” floating in the Pacific ocean, whilst when exploring the the planets, the large quantity of space junk orbiting the earth is highlighted. Not only does this book tell us how the world works, it also makes us think about how it’s beginning to break down.

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By Michelle Rafferty

Last week we received a message from Miki Matoba, Director of Global Academic Business at OUP Tokyo, confirming that her staff is safe and well. This was a relief to hear, and also a reminder that although many of us are tied to the people of Japan in some way, our perspective of the human impact is relatively small.  So I asked Miki if she wouldn’t mind sharing some of her experiences, and she kindly agreed. When she responded to my questions she wrote: “Hope my answers reflect a part of how we view the incidents as Japanese.”

1.) Where were you, and what were your thoughts as the earthquake hit?

I was in a meeting room with a visitor from OUP Oxford and my staff having a meeting when the earthquake started. You may find this weird but we all are very much living with earthquakes from a young age. So little shakes here and there are just a part of our lives. But not the one we had last Friday as that was the biggest one in some hundreds of years. What I normally think when earthquakes start is when shall I get up to secure the exit and go under the desk. Most of the time, you do not have to do either as it does not last long. But not this time. As the building started to shake for a while I opened the door of the meeting room thinking that this is a big one but should stop soon. But it did not. So we put ourselves under the table hoping for the shaking to cease. When it did not, I thought then that this is a serious one and something really severe will happen as a result.

Then we saw some white stuff coming down in the office (it was not fire – just some dust coming down from the ceiling) and someone shouted that we should leave NOW. So we did. I did not take anything. Just myself and those who were meeting with me, running down from 8th floor to the ground. Even when we were running down the stairs, it was still shaking. After a while, we went back to the office to get things as the decision was made very quickly to close the office for that day. Almost everything on my desk had either fallen over or was on the floor, and it was still shaking.

2.) Was anyone prepared?

Yes and no. As Japanese, we all are prepared for earthquakes but not for something of this size and the aftermath of it.

3.) How do you continue to manage your group at such a difficult time? Is it possible to work?

Try to communicate well. We email and also have set up an internal Twitter account that we tweet to, including who will go into the office and what they are doing as we are still mainly working from home. The situation is still very unsettling making it difficult to concentrate on work (power rationing, aftershocks and the nuclear power plant situation) but we try to process day-to-day things as usual.

4.) How would you describe the city right now (the business activity, the state of mind)?

Interesting question. I think Tokyo is normally one of the most vibrant cities in the world. Now the city is very quiet compared to normal. The weather has been clear and nice after Friday so it feels odd to be in this peaceful, quiet Tokyo under the sun after all that.

5.) I’ve heard radiation levels are higher than normal – is everyone staying inside?

We have lots of information going around including rumors. We live almost as normal – just listening to TV and radio all the time, watching the progress of the nuclear plant situation. I do not go out if that can be avoided.

6.) What do people outside of Japan need to know?

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Last Wednesday morning I woke, probably like you, to the news of the huge earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. I felt so very sad and wished there was something I could do to help. Something more personal than donating to the Red Cross, something more than emailing and tweeting friends to check they were ok and to let them know I was thinking of them.

I was soon in touch with Bronwyn, a resident in Christchurch and long time follower and supporter of Playing by the book. Fortunately she and her family are unhurt. Although their house is damaged they live in a district that has not been as badly affected as other parts of the city. I wanted to send her something as a small token of solidarity, care and hope, but as we tweeted a bigger idea emerged.

Many families in Christchurch have had their homes destroyed and badly damaged. They’ve lost everything, including books. I know I’m preaching to the converted when I talk about the comfort and solace books can provide, especially in times of stress and despair, but now I want to ask you if you would like to take part in something that will help provide exactly this: An opportunity for you to personally help families affected by the earthquake.

Bronwyn and I are gathering a list of families who are in need of books. Many of these families are homeschoolers, though certainly not all. What we are asking is for you to reach out to these families and send them a book or two. A new children’s book, a book you and your family love, a book that the family you’re paired with might enjoy, might make them laugh, might make them feel that people, you, are thinking of them and supporting them.

So, if you would like to reach out to a Christchurch family please get in touch and Bronwyn and I will team you up with a partner family. Send me an email (zoe  dot  toft  at  kuvik  dot net) saying you’d like to help and we’ll take it from there.

Some practical nuts and bolts:

Normal postal services are not yet working in Christchurch, though some courier services are. Many families have now moved out of Christchurch and so the address you will be sent may not be a Christchurch address. Indeed, we do not wish to stretch further the services that are up and running. If you are teamed up with a family still living in Christchuch, please use a courier to send your book and let me know which courier service you use so I can inform the family you’ve been teamed up with (they may need to go to the courier depot at the airport to collect your parcel).

Please only send NEW children’s and YA books. We will let you know the ages of the children in the family you are paired up with in order to help you select books that they will enjoy.

Please do not expect the family you are paired up with to reply to you. They may well write back, but this is not to be expected. This scheme is not about setting up penpals, but rather helping families at a time of need.

***********************

I’m also helping Bronwyn gather books to distribute to welfare centres for displaced resident across Christchurch. We’re both thrilled that Julia Marshall, publisher at Gecko Press has very generously offered to send a parcel of books for Bronwyn to distribute. Gecko Press produces wonderful books and I know they will be hugely appreciated by their recipients.

Whilst investigating in w

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An 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Chile about 3:00 in the morning on February 27, just hours after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the Ryukyu Islands, Japan. The quake that hit and devastated sections of Haiti on January 12 was also a 7.0 magnitude. To help children understand what earthquakes are and what they can do, we are providing free access to Pandas’ Earthquake Escape eBook, available in both English and Spanish. www.SylvanDellPublishing.com. Click here for the “For Creative Minds” section relating to earthquakes and here for even more earthquak-related teaching activities, information.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

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We are hearing a lot about the damage, injuries and life lost in Haiti because of a major earthquake. I am sure many children have been made fearful by the news coverage. We need to give them information to take away their fear. I would advise parents to allow their children to participate in efforts to help the people of Haiti. When we are helping others we are less worried about our own well-being. Susan Berger has written a wonderful book about earthquakes so I asked her to share some of her knowledge with the rest of us.

SHARI: Susan, if I’m not mistaken you live in Southern California, a place known for some major earthquakes, have you ever been in an earthquake? Can tell us about it?

SUSAN: We are well known as Earthquake country. However the only quakes we need to worry about are the big quakes. That would be an earthquake measuring over 6.2 on the Richter scale. The lesser quakes are scary, but rarely do significant damage. A 5.5 to 6.1 is considered “Very Strong” according to the USGS chart. Any quake over 5.5 can cause your electricity to snap off and may cause damage to a building. .

Oddly enough I do not think Sacramento gets earthquakes. But the coastal cities certainly do. Northern California had a 6.5 two weeks ago. The last major quake in Los Angeles was in 1994. We are overdue for another one.

SHARI: I use to live in Southern California myself, but I was fortunate to be away when big quakes struck. I did experience some less intense quakes. I think the largest was a 3.6 in the San Fernando Valley in 1963. I recall waves in the swimming pool and light fixtures swinging back and forth, but I don’t think there was any damage. Earthquakes are not exclusive to California and Haiti. Where else do they occur?

SUSAN: Here is a map from FEMA showing earthquake probability in the United States. As you can see, activity is fairly wide spread. There are only four states which have not had an earthquake. However most of them are too small to be noticed. Humans rarely feel an earthquake lower than a 3.0

This is a map from FEMA showing Earthquake probabilities.

Here is a global map for Earthquake probability. As you can see, China, Japan and a great part of Europe are Marked in red as is the entire North and South American coast

SHARI: Are some places better equipped to deal with earthquakes than others? Why?

SUSAN: Yes. California, Alaska, Oregon and Japan know they will have earthquakes. They spent a lot of time and money preparing for earthquakes. The seismic building code is frequently updated.

Some parts of the world such as Haiti, and Italy, Czechoslovakia and Mexico rarely see devastating quakes. Many of the building structures are very old and no one thought of upgrading the structure to make them safe for earthquakes. In our own country there was an earthquake in New Madrid Missouri which was probably an 8. something in 1811. (Of course we were not measuring them at that time) This series of quakes caused the ground to shake for eight days and caused the Mississippi to run backward. There is a strong possibility that Missouri might have another large quake. I am not sure that buildings in that area have been retrofitted to with

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No one can escape the hundreds of articles and reports into global climate change: it is one of the most important issues on the political landscape in countries across the world. For this month’s Very Short Introduction column, I put a few questions to Bill McGuire, author of Global Catastrophe: A Very Short Introduction. McGuire is Director of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre and has authored or edited over 400 books, papers and articles focusing on volcano instability and monitoring, volcanic hazards, natural hazards and environmental change, climate change and global geophysical events. He has worked on or visited volcanoes all over the world, including Mount Etna, Pinatubo and Ta’al in the Philippines, and Soufriere Hills in Montserrat.

OUP: Over the last few years we have seen an alarming increase in natural disasters, such as the Asian tsunami and subsequent earthquakes in the region. Can this rise be put down simply to climate change, or are there other possible explanations?

BILL McGUIRE: We have indeed been seeing a rise in the numbers of natural disasters, especially since 1990. This does not necessarily mean, however, that there have been more natural hazards. Climate change is already driving up the numbers of extreme weather events, such as storms and floods, and this is clearly having an impact. So far, however, we are not seeing any increase in the number and scale of geological hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. The main reason for more natural disasters in recent years is that there are ever more people living in vulnerable regions, particularly in the coastal zone.

OUP: At the same time as being faced with more and more reports about global warming, and the melting polar ice caps, we also hear about a possible new ice age. How can we have an ice age when the earth is getting warmer?

McGUIRE: Current global warming is happening and is unequivocally due to human activities. There is no new ice age on the horizon, and in fact the next one - which would normally be expected within 10,000 years or so - may be postponed by our warming activities for up to half a million years.

If the gulf stream and associated Atlantic currents shut down in the next few decades, we could see a temporary cooling of the UK, Europe and the eastern US, but this would be far from an ice age, and warming would soon take over once more.

OUP: You say in your book that the human race “came within a hair’s breath of extinction” after a massive volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago. How do we know this, and what saved us then? Could the same thing happen now?

McGUIRE: Studies of mitochondrial DNA reveal evidence of a human population crash around about the time of the Toba super-eruption. This is known because we are so genetically similar that everyone alive today must be descended from a limited gene pool at about this time. It may be that just a few thousand humans survived the effects of the blast on the climate, possibly in tropical regions where the succeeding volcanic winter may have been less intense. This remains, however, highly speculative.

OUP: You suggest that the human race can try to preserve itself by moving into space, therefore potentially outliving Earth. Is the move into space really a realistic proposition?

McGUIRE: The only things hindering the colonisation of space are political will and money. Given time, I expect both obstacles to be overcome, leading to our race eventually reaching the stars. The big question is whether this would be good thing - bearing in mind how we have treated our own planet and those species we share it with? It may also be that the economic and social collapse that dangerous climate change looks increasingly likely to bring will set us back for generations.

OUP: Once people have read Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction, which five books would you point them to next?

McGUIRE: Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet (also by me) suggests possible solutions to some of the potential catastrophes addressed in ‘global catastrophes’.

To find out how close we are to the oil running out, with consequent economic mayhem, I recommend The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man by David Strahan

The greatest threat to our race and our planet currently lies in contemporary climate change, so I would direct the reader to: Six Degrees by Mark Lynas and The Rough Guide to Climate Change.

Finally, I would (naturally) recommend my new climate change book Seven Years to Save the Planet due to be published in July (in the UK) by Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

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Evacuation in the path of an on-coming hurricane is easy!

Safe and effective evacuation in the path of an on-coming hurricane has always been a risky and uncertain proposition. Not any more with Help Jet, the world’s first hurricane escape plan that turns a hurricane evacuation into a jet-setter vacation.

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