Author: Helen Lewis
Publisher: Metz Press

For 8 to 12 year olds

When I took the Fact Finder home for my girls to explore, it disappeared for a few days.  One evening I noticed that my husband was totally engrossed in the book he was holding – the Fact Finder..  I let him keep it with the hope of him doing this review... mmm..

Our youngest daughter eventually managed to get her hands on the Fact Finder and sat reading..  After a short while, she came running to tell me that “sharks would sink if they stopped swimming”.... that “sharks don’t have good eyesight but can smell 1 drop of blood in 100 million parts of water”... and so it goes every time one of them looks through ‘our new coffee table book’!

The Fact Finder is based on the South African school curriculum.  It contains lots of colourful illustrations, photographs and interesting facts all put together in an uncluttered and interesting to read layout.   What’s best is that it can be used by young and ‘old’. 

The subjects covered in the book are :

Science (human body - nature -  stars & planets  - basic science), Social Sciences (History & Geography), Language, Arts & Culture, Economic Management Sciences, Life Orientation and Technology.

There are even prompts in some chapters for kids and parents to do further research such as :

“Go to http://wordsmith.org/anagram and have some fun typing in names or words which will be turned into anagrams”.  or

“Go to www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_bushbaby for fascinating information about bush babies”.

What I enjoyed about looking through the Fact Finder is that you get what you are looking for in a simpler form much quicker that what you would on the internet!  Information is summarised to the ‘basic need to knows’ which makes it easier for kids to read.  Don’t get me wrong here... The wealth of information on the internet is pretty much irreplaceable, but one can get soooo distracted and often taken completely off the information track you originally started on...!

So if you are looking for a quick reference book that covers a comprehensive range of subjects that are relevant to your child’s education (or to brush up on your rusty knowledge on history etc) – look no further.  The Fact Finder by Helen Lewis is this book!

This book is also available in Afrikaans - Feiteboek - ’n Kennis-skatkis vir 8 tot 12-jariges

Purchase English Fact Finder from Kalahari.net
Purchase Afrikaans Feiteboek from Kalahari.net

Review by Maxine Davies

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