Terry Denton's Really Truly Amazing Guide to Everything by Terry Denton

Penguin Random House, 2020. ISBN: 9781760898922. 260pp.
(Age: 8+) Highly recommended. This non-fiction book is a delightful treasure trove of scientific facts and the truth about how the world works. Ranging from the beginning of the universe through to explanations of evolution, human anatomy, the animal and plant world, physics, time, inventions and even Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The book is well organised into 8 chapters, (bar the last one) and each is broken down into subheadings with manageable bite-sized pieces of information. Yet it also connects the information throughout the book. Some of the information is really funny and silly and acts to keep the reader amused and on their toes, such as the checklist of human body parts and the Fact Box that says, "The average human body contains enough bones to make an entire skeleton." Or the pages on the domestication of animals and how horses were a useful form of transportation for humans, but owls and bees weren't, are complemented with laugh out loud cartoons.
Terry Denton has drawn many really helpful diagrams to support the facts. There are also oodles of humorous cartoons, involving horse and bird, monkeys and giant spiders. Denton likes to make himself and his characters the butt of many jokes. This all serves to lighten the tone and make this nicely sized, hardbound book all the more appealing. The choice of font, illustrations and page design also help make the information easy to read. It is the sort of book that can be read from end to end but also dipped into or revisited to get the facts straight. Explanations of scientific principles and systems are useful no matter what your age. Denton's Guide is an important antidote to ignorance and does an important thing by explaining the fundamentals of science in a thorough but entertaining way.
Jo Marshall