How Things Are Made

How was this made? Children have always wanted to know the answer to this question--and this fun and eye-catching book provides answers. With six large gatefolds and 26 booklets, it's chock-full of fun facts that take kids through the life cycle of everyday objects like t-shirts, books, bread, chairs, and glassware. Young and inquiring minds will be fascinated, educated, and entertained for hours!

For anyone curious about the nuts and bolts of human ingenuity, How Things Are Made is a fascinating exploration of the process behind the manufacture of everyday items. What are bulletproof vests made of' How do manufacturers get lipstick into the tube' How many layers are there in an iPhone screen' The answers to these questions and so much more fascinating information can be found in How Things Are Made, a behind-the-scenes look at the production everyday objects of all kinds, from guitars, sunscreen, and seismographs to running shoes, jet engines, and chocolate. Thoroughly revised and redesigned from the best-selling 1995 edition, How Things Are Made also contains three new entries by author Andrew Terranova. However, each page still contains informative step-by-step text along with detailed but easy-to-follow illustrations, diagrams, and sidebars to tell the stories behind the things we sometimes take for granted. For example, did you know that Edison didn't really invent the light bulb' Or that the first bar code was on a pack of Wrigley's Spearmint gum' Or that a maple seed inspired the design for the helicopter' Discover these fascinating anecdotes and much more in How Things Are Made.

Activities are organised around themes developed by the book of same title.

Robert Penn cut down an ash tree to see how many things could be made from it. After all, ash is the tree we have made the greatest and most varied use of over the course of human history. Journeying from Wales across Europe and Ireland to the USA, Robert finds that the ancient skills and knowledge of the properties of ash, developed over millennia making wheels and arrows, furniture and baseball bats, are far from dead. The book chronicles how the urge to understand and appreciate trees still runs through us all like grain through wood.

Charles Harper Webb is celebrated for his use of humor; yet even his funniest poems rise, as the best comedy must, out of deep human drives, sorrows, and needs. Powerful immersions in what it means to be human, these poems explore the spectrum of emotions from love to hate, tenderness to brutality. They can be withering and vulnerable in the same breath. Models of clarity and vividness, they are mysterious when they need to be, ranging from lyric to narrative, from realism to wild surreal flights, powered by a fierce, compassionate intelligence. Metaphors of startling aptness and originality, a voice at once endearing and provocative, high musicality, propulsive energy, wild imaginative leaps, as well as mastery of diction from lyricism to street-speak, create a reading experience of the first order. Uniformly fun to read, these poems go down easy, but pack a wallop. As Robert Frost said poetry should do, What Things Are Made Of "begins in delight and ends in wisdom."

CDs start out as sand. Blackboard chalk comes from tiny sea creatures. The objects all around us --- every single product in the world --- is made from elements found in nature. Discover how nature is transformed into more than 60 things we eat, drink, play with, wear or use every day. Technology changes constantly, but the stages raw materials go through to become finished objects remain much the same. On every page of this big book, these processes are described and illustrated step by step. The text and artwork combine playfulness with encyclopedic attention to detail. This unique and fascinating book will inform and entertain every step of the way. Includes a glossary, index and further resources to help children, parents and teachers.

How Things are Made explores how the internet works, money is produced, computer games are created, cars are built, electricity is generated and homes are constructed through fold-out maps and booklets.

“Like the YouTube channel, this is a touching yet informative guide for those seeking fatherly advice, or even a few good dad jokes.” — Library Journal