National Geographic Kids Why?: Over 1,111 Answers to Everything

The concept is simple. Got a question? Well now you have an answer! 1,111 of them, in fact. Want to know why your snot is yellow? Flip to the human body chapter. What’s on the inside of a turtle shell? The animal section has you covered. What’s in the deepest part of the ocean? And why doesn’t Earth just float off into space? Check and check. With hundreds of topics ranging from silly to serious, we’ve got expert information in a fun and entertaining format that will keep kids digging for answers. Answers include all kinds of fascinating extra info like top ten lists, weird-but-true facts, explorer profiles, and cool activities. Now, go stump your parents! 

National Geographic Kids Why? has seven chapters that cover the following information: 1) Your Body, 2) Our Planet, 3) The Universe, 4) History, 5) Technology, 6) Animals, and 7) Pop Culture. The wide range of topics includes many interesting facts about the Big Bang, global warming, ancient Egyptians, mummification, the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, why we can’t teleport like in Star Trek, why animals play, and why some people are mean on the internet. Boyer uses examples from the Guinness Book of World Records to put some facts into perspective. In addition, many lists break items down, such as the steps ancient Egyptians used to make mummies, how castles were conquered, how to avoid getting bit by a shark, and how search engines work.  

While the book’s information is extensive, Boyer acknowledges that we don’t know much. For example, people do not know what’s in the Earth’s core. However, several theories are discussed, such as “In 2014, geologists found what might be a reservoir of water larger than all the planet’s oceans combined deep in the Earth’s mantle.” The section about the earth includes several diagrams labeling the parts of the Earth.  

Along with facts, National Geographic Kids Why? has sidebars that showcase eleven people of interest. These people include theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawkings, scientist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, explorer Leif Eriksson, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Polish mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus, electrical engineer Ralf Baer, blacksmith Johannes Gutenberg, author J.K. Rowling, video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, and singer Micheal Jackson. 

National Geographic Kids Why? uses a fun format with large, full-color pictures and illustrations on every page. Each topic is put in the form of a question, such as why there are different languages. Each question is answered anywhere from one to three paragraphs. While the book’s reading level is advanced, the information is formatted in easily digestible segments. National Geographic Kids Why? will appeal to any curious reader, and since none of the topics are discussed in detail, the book may inspire readers to further research many of the topics found in the book.  

Sexual Content  

• None 

Violence  

• The Neanderthals “died out, possibly because humans hunted them for food or started families with them.”  
• While trying to conquer a castle, the attacking army used starvation and devices designed to batter the castle and its defenders. “Catapults hurled stones that smashed walls and the people hiding behind them. . . The castle’s garrison of knights and soldiers, meanwhile, mounted a furious defense, raining arrows and boiling water on the attackers and shoving siege ladders away from the walls.” 
• Before a squire was knighted, he prayed through the night. “He knelt before his lord or the knight who trained him. This man then delivered a punch to the squire’s cheek—in some cases with enough force to knock the would-be knight to the ground—to help him remember his oath.” 
• Gladiators were slaves or prisoners of war who were forced to fight “for the bloodthirsty crowd’s amusement.” The gladiators often fought exotic animals, and the fights were often “gory.”
  
• The ancient Mayans and Aztecs played a brutal ball game. “The solid rubber balls left players bruised and bloody. Games sometimes resulted in broken bones and even death as players dove to the stone court to keep the ball from touching the ground.” 
• Knights entered jousting tournaments, and “many knights were permanently injured or killed in jousts. King Henry II of France died in a joust when a lance pierced his visor.” 
• During the witch trials in 15th-century Europe, “suspected witches were rounded up, tortured into confessing any number of crimes, and then burnt alive at the stake. By the 1700s, as many as 60,000 suspected witches had been tried and executed in Europe.” 
• Africanized bees were made in a lab, and “they’ll pursue any threat until it drops—and then continue stinging and stinging and stinging! A swarm chased a Texas man and nailed him more than a thousand times!”

Drugs and Alcohol  

• None 

Language  

• None

Supernatural 

• The Hope diamond may be cursed and is “best known for its history of unhappy owners. King Louis XVI lost his head in the French Revolution. More than a hundred years later, a woman who wore the diamond became convinced it was cursed after her husband, eldest son, and daughter all died.”  
• Legends say, “a ninja could fly, walk on water, and vanish. Two of these powers were real, sort of. (Ninjas wore special wooden shoes to tread on water and explosive powers to disappear in a cloud of smoke.)” 

Spiritual Content  

• Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish mathematician, said the Earth orbited the sun. “It was a dangerous theory that went against the teachings of the Catholic Church, so Copernicus didn’t publish his big idea until his final days.” 
• Some men who played the ancient Mayan and Aztec ball games played for religious reasons. “The games were thought to represent the battle of good against evil. Some games may have ended in sacrificial rituals to appease the gods.”  
• In the 1500s, church officials linked “the practice of witchcraft to the devil.”