Two Brilliant Non-Fiction Books for Kids… from Jonathan Ball Publishers

I am getting my blogging mojo back and I am starting with a book series… I’ll be blogging two books a day, for the rest of the lockdown… I am starting today with two actual factual books from Jonathan Ball Publishers. Can I just say, non-fiction for kids has truly upped it’s game, these two books are really fantastic. If you are lurking with a young curiosity seeking scientist then these books are exactly what you are looking for.

Two Brilliant Actual Factual Books We Have Been Reading Lately

Fantastically Great Women Who Saved the Planet by Kate Pankhurst

The first book is called Fantastically Great Women Who Saved the Planet by Kate Pankhurst. Kate Pankhurst is an amazing illustrator of children’s books, her illustrations are busy and packed with details. Not to mention loads of facts that are intriguing for kids and just as interesting for the adult reading to them. The book is packed with all kinds of “Did you know?” facts, which are presented in shorty, punch snippets.

What drew us to this book is that it is full of many of our favourite heroes, but then upon reading it, discovered so many more. While this book is about women, it is not a book just for girls… your sons and daughters will be fascinated by these heroic women of our time. I must say by the end of the book I was feeling proud to be women scientist. This book is amazing… the funky font, the fabulous facts and the amazing illustrations really make it.

Heroes Between the Pages

1. Eugenie Clark, also known as the shark lady, whose fascination with the underwater world was sparked when her mom left her at the New York City Aquarium, while she was at work. Eugenie grew up to be a pioneer shark scientist, learning about sharks and educating the public as she explored.

2. Wangari Maathai, who started the GreenBelt Movement in Kenya… a tree planter and women empowered.
3. Ingeborg Beling, the bee scientist, who discovered that there is way more to bees than buzzing insects on a summer day.

4. Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, who refused to test her products on animals, and instituted many green conscious practises in her world wide stores.
5. Edith Farkas, an Ozone researcher, and the first woman scientist to step onto Antarctica… and set the trend for scientists like myself many years later.
6. Jane Goodall, the chimpanzee champion, whose lack of formal training gave her a huge advantage over other biologists, she had incredibly innovative ideas and ways to study her chimpanzees and it is no surprise that she is the legend that she is.
7. Isatou Geesay, who grew up in Gambia and developed a project that enabled local women to create beautiful bowls and bags, and other useful products from used plastic shopping bags… empowering women with financial security, and creating beautiful products by recycling products that had been thrown away.
8. Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey, wild bird campaigner, who changed fashion trends so that women of the day no longer relied on exotic feathers to decorate their clothing.
9. Maria Telkes, who took on technology and renewable energy and invented a solar heated home.
10. The Chipko Movement, peaceful protestors, who campaigned to protect their forests from being chopped down and other natural resources as well.
11. Eileen Kampakuta Brown and Eileen Wani Wingfield in Australia, were aboriginal elders, who prevented their government from using local land as a nuclear waste dump.
12. Ursula Marvin a geologist fascinated with the origin of the earth, studied meteorites and even has asteroid named after her.

13. Daphne Sheldrick, who grew up on the plains of Africa, surrounded by wild animals. She was fascinated with elephants and was the first person to figure out how to feed baby elephants and help the orphan elephants to survive.

This is a picture book, aimed at younger kids who love facts being read to them, or older pre-chapter or beginner chapter book readers. Loads of facts its a lovely book – we highly recommend it.

Tyrannosaurus Rex by Douglas Dixon and illustrated by Rachel Caldwell



This book is truly inspired, more a work of art filled with facts. It is a pop up book that anyone who loves exploring would love to get into. It feels like a historical artefact, a step back into Victorian Science… with pop-ups to explain and demonstrate the inner workings of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

The facts are fascinating, again short snippets, to keep the modern mini-scientist intrigued, as they leap from one useful block of information to another.

This book is graphical, tactile experience… with loads of hands on exploring. Not one page is just for looking at, they all have something to lift, pull, discover… and not just one or two flaps, there are layer upon layer of things to discover in this book with a lovely, classic feel to it.

This book is not just for dinosaur lovers, anybody interested in natural history would be intrigued to know what has been discovered and inferred from the fossil record. I am guessing that this book would be placed in children’s non-fiction in a book shop, but actually scientists of all ages would enjoy it.

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Thank you to Jonathan Ball Publishers for supplying this fabulous collection of books for review purposes. This is not a sponsored post and all the opinions are as usual my own.