Essential Facts & Figures

This pocketful of knowledge will answer questions like: How many countries are there in the world? Who were the first humans on the Moon? What is the speed of light? With this in hand, you have a miniature reference library crammed with key facts about: Science: scientific milestones, the periodic table, scientific units, light, sound, food and nutrition.Mathematics: number systems, arithmetic, geometry, angles and circles, weights and measures, conversion tables and speed.Humans: human body, spoken word, written word, religious systems, sports, the arts and calendars.Our World: the night sky, sun and moon, the planets, earth, time zones, water and climate zones.Politics: political worlds, world's nations, American states, world resources, rulers and leaders, and major wars. There are also conversion tables to measurements used in cooking that made me like this even more! The section on world nations includes the flag, country, capital, population, currency, official language and square miles for each. There is a nice mini-index to help you look up the desired fact. Really handy!

Internet, powered by helpful search engines, spews out all the innards of information at the flick of a button. At least that is what we have been led to believe. The reality, however, is quite different. You are immediately presented with such a multitude of choices that you are more confused than when you started your search. Put a ten year old in your place and try to imagine his condition in the face of this bombardment of information. Conclusion: when it comes to looking for plain facts and practical info, nothing can outdo the good old general knowledge books. `Pockets: Essential Facts' has the right ingredients, which make such books interesting among young readers. It has some great colourful graphics, pictures and maps; just enough introductory material; interesting fact boxes and the right kind of topics - all arranged in an appropriate, handy size. This is the type of book, which a child would love to carry to all sorts of places - school, picnic, summer camps, and then start off an impromptu quiz show! The book, which appears to be surprisingly small and thin, indeed contains everything to whet a child's appetite for basic facts. All essential subjects, ranging from the solar system to world religion, to mathematics are covered in six sections such as the world around political world, the technology, science, mathematics, people and us. The graphics are superb and they fill in for the need of lengthy explanations. The three dimensional graphics such as `Inside the Earth' and `Earth's Atmosphere,' with their logical colour schemes and appropriate annotations, make things simple and interesting for the young readers. The graphic titled `Animal Speeds' presents comparison of different animal speeds in the most lucid manner. We learn that human beings bring up the rear both on land and in the water. The tables and diagrams, which are many, make the data more accessible and easier to absorb. The mathematical, geometric and scientific rules and formulae come in handy for the student. Other topics of interest are chapters on human body, the arts, calendars communications and sign language. The fact boxes, which adorn many pages, can be of great interest for the adult readers as well. So, while the child is trying to make sense of the conversion tables or the anatomy of a circle, the parents can mull over the fact box sidelights, such as, `30% of people in Western countries are overweight, and about 5% of them are obese,' or ` the largest shopping centre in the world, West Edmonton mall, Alberta, Canada, is as big as 90 football fields.' This book is what every student should possess.