Mike Barfield excels at this humorous graphic style of non– fiction, having previously won the 2021 Blue Peter Award for a Book With Facts, with A Day in the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You. He has a real knack for selecting just the right sort of facts that will amaze intrigue and amuse young readers and really makes the most of all the opportunities the format provides for comic asides and speech bubbles.
The design of the colourful pages really helps the reader navigate around the detailed information. Divided into 8 themes relating roughly to buildings, travel, homes, food and drink, clothing, games, sport and screens-based communication, with each section including a double paged spread on an inventor; a look at whatever next for some featured inventions and at world wonders in this category.
This all contributes to a real range of information that lifts this far beyond a more straightforward look at single inventions. We get a real sense of how technologies developed around the world and in different cultures. The featured inventors are not the familiar and famous and their stories reinforce the idea that we all are potential inventors.
The book concludes with a look at the patents process and a writing frame for your own ideas. A really enjoyable read with irresistible browsing appeal.
Watch LoveReading4Kids Editorial Expert Joy Court and two of our fabulous Reading Ambassadors in conversation with author Mike Barfield in our exclusive event.
The World's First Rollercoaster and Other Amazing Inventions Synopsis
The first in a new three-book non-fiction series from Blue Peter Award-winning author Mike Barfield; brought to life in a lively comic-strip format.
Did you know that bubblewrap started life as a new type of wallpaper that didn't catch on?! Or that Lonnie Johnson invented the Nerf Super Soaker while working on a NASA mission to Saturn?
Blue Peter Award-winner Mike Barfield tells the fascinating true stories behind an amazing range of inventions and innovations. From bubblewrap to the barcode, from pizza to post-its, from trainers to the teddy bear! The story of each invention is told in a lively comic-strip format, and we meet the colourful cast of characters involved in these light-bulb moments which changed the world in big or tiny ways.
An irresistible way into science and technology with a dash of history, from the brilliant Mike Barfield, author of A Day in the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You which won the 2021 Blue Peter Award for a Book With Facts.
Mike Barfield has been wild about the natural world from an early age. His love of nature took him to King’s College London where he gained a first class honours degree in botany and zoology. After a career in comedy writing for TV and radio, he turned to creating award-winning non-fiction for children built on his love of science and finding things out. He is the winner of the Blue Peter Children’s Book Award 2021 in the ‘Best Book with Facts’ category, and has also been shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People's Book Prize, the Association for Science Education Children’s Book Prize (twice) and the De Bary Award for Outstanding Children’s Science Books (twice). is an award-winning writer, cartoonist, poet and performer. Internationally popular, he writes and creates funny non-fiction and activity books for young people, published in over 30 different languages. His cartoon feature 'Apparently' has been running in the pages of Private Eye for many years, while his drawings have been displayed in the V&A Museum, London's Cartoon Museum, and Nigella Lawson's downstairs toilet.
When not busy writing and drawing, Mike performs family-friendly fun-filled shows at schools, libraries and festivals across the country. He has been wild about science and animals from an early age.
