All ages
Killingly funny and sophisticated, even second time around, How to Keep Dinosaurs by Robert Mash (second edition, Phoenix/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 拢7.99) is stuffed full of advice for eager novices. Icons tell you which animals are 鈥渨orryingly stupid鈥�, 鈥渋ffy with babies鈥� or 鈥渕ake good tractors鈥�. Children will love the buck-toothed bunnysaurus that doubles as a nanny and 鈥� in the absence of cat flaps 鈥� will run through walls to tell parents a baby鈥檚 nappy needs changing.
For the security-conscious, reduced home insurance is available for keepers of free-ranging pterosaurs who have undergone a short intruder-recognition course. Speaking of intruders, dsungaripterus can be trained to hang from the roof at night and jump trespassers. Invited guests please identify themselves by singing My Way.
A footnote: saltoposachus meat makes the best dinoburgers and steak tartare, and heterodontosaurus likes TV, especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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12 years and up
A brilliantly realised grand tour of the solar system, Space Odyssey: A voyage to the planets (BBC Books, 拢19.99) is not merely for space buffs. Designed by Tim Haines and Christopher Riley to accompany the BBC TV series, it gives us a thoroughgoing history of space exploration enlivened by a fictional diary. Tension builds as Yvan runs late on an EVA to Venus鈥檚 surface and the engine on his lander Orpheus fails to fire. Spirits fall when a salty water sample reveals no sign of Martian life.
The crew鈥檚 account feels authentic down to the last detail. Two crew pass out at 11 g when their spaceship Pegasus performs a brutal aerobraking manoeuvre near Jupiter at 30 kilometres per second. And you feel genuine shock when medic John discovers he is dying of lymphoma, with no chemotherapy drugs on board because they would poison the water supply. He is later buried in Saturn鈥檚 rings. A gripping read and useful reference book in one.
11 years and up
Lavishly illustrated with photographs and diagrams, John Langone鈥檚 How Things Work (new edition, National Geographic Books, 拢19.99/$35) has compact, easily digested entries of a page or two on all manner of technologies vital for the smooth running of everyday life, from planes, trains, automobiles and elevators to electricity. I am now an expert on household plumbing.
It is even quicker than the internet for looking up those last-minute homework question over the cornflakes. A veritable workhorse of a reference book and a must for secondary-school children.
10 and up
You need to persist with What Makes Me Me by Robert Winston (Dorling Kindersley, 拢9.99) because it starts off as a competent, if slightly dull, biology guide for beginners. The tone is relentlessly upbeat, peppered with did you know this or that or the other. So far, so jaded, but hang on: it gets much better. The FAQs are excellent, dealing with such questions as 鈥渃an you smell true love?鈥� and, rather ambitiously, 鈥渨hat is consciousness?鈥�. The section on genes is thorough: you learn that freckles, dimples and a widow鈥檚 peak are all down to a single dominant gene.
Winston really gets into his stride with engrossing tests for different kinds of intelligence and sorts of personality. Dropping lemon juice on the tongue will reveal an introvert 鈥� being more sensitive to stimulation means they make more saliva. A fun book for enquiring minds.
8 and up
Even the resolutely innumerate will get something out of Numbers, Facts and Fiction (Badsey Publications, 拢12). It鈥檚 encyclopedic, but in a good way, with a generous sprinkling of brain-teasers to please the mathematically minded. Individual numbers are the starting point for tangential flights into maths, myth and mystery. Here鈥檚 a taster. Take four and you learn that no other number in English has the same number of letters as its value. Then there are plus fours as worn by 1920s golfers, and the four-colour theorem. Mug up on a few to impress your friends.