readingthroughtheages's review against another edition
5.0
Fascinating facts, and wait, false facts? Yet those un-truths are hard to figure out in this book!
This book is sure to amaze readers and will be a fantastic mentor text for teachers when discussing how to sift through research and fact check what is written.
This book is sure to amaze readers and will be a fantastic mentor text for teachers when discussing how to sift through research and fact check what is written.
laura_mcloughlin's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting. Will probably revisit when the kindergartner is a bit older.
jillcd's review against another edition
5.0
As a librarian, I am truly excited to show this book to my students. While reading it, I thought of various fun ways to introduce this and reinforce research skills. The stories are well written and intriguing enough to make you want to solve the puzzles. I can’t wait for the next in the series!
ki4eva's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting short facts. Its fun trying to guess which story is fake.
themily394's review against another edition
4.0
Read this because it's a 19/20 William Allen White award nominee and I may use it to start a new program at the library. Pretty interesting stuff!
kendallbridgete's review against another edition
4.0
Very cool. Looking forward to using this with older students in library/research lessons.
*Fun fact: I guessed most of the two truths/one lie I guessed incorrectly (I probably only got 3/9 correct)...however, there are other little things in the book for you to see if you know which of them is the falsehood and I got almost ALL of those correct. :)
*Fun fact: I guessed most of the two truths/one lie I guessed incorrectly (I probably only got 3/9 correct)...however, there are other little things in the book for you to see if you know which of them is the falsehood and I got almost ALL of those correct. :)
cweichel's review against another edition
4.0
If you want to be raising your children to be critical thinkers, you should own a copy of this book. It will probably help the adults in your house learn to identify hoaxes more easily too.
emtobiasz's review against another edition
4.0
This book offers a neat opportunity for honing research and fake-news-spotting skills, combined with engaging stories about weird, gross, and unbelievable science. The writing is great and even the fake stories contain some real information, making it all the trickier to identify them.
A couple things make me hesitant about it: first, the book really requires some adult guidance to get what the authors intended out of it, which is to use the stories as a jumping-off point for independent research. I can see this being really valuable in a classroom setting or with a hands-on parent, but many kids are going to do what I immediately wanted to: read the three stories, make a guess and then want somewhere in the book to flip to and see if they're right. The book does have the answers in it, but they feel a bit buried between the research tips and the bibliography. I understand why the authors want to discourage kids from just flipping to the answers, but I'm also leery of a book I'm keeping in nonfiction that tells you up front "some of this information is false" without offering a clear place to identify which is. My second criticism is purely from a design perspective: the book is divided into nine chapters with three stories each (the titular two truths and a lie), all with colorful backgrounds and large photographs. All the bright color, however, make it difficult to tell at a glance where one chapter begins and another ends. If, say, they had made chapter one's splash pages all purple, and chapter two's all green, etc., the book would still be visually striking and easier to read in chunks. It's not that big a deal, it's just a missed opportunity for browsers.
So, I think this is still a worthwhile book, but a few tweaks could have improved it even more. On the plus side, I managed to identify all the fake stories, so that master's degree in information science wasn't a complete waste. (I'm sure that's what gave me an edge, and not being three times as old as the target age for this book.)
A couple things make me hesitant about it: first, the book really requires some adult guidance to get what the authors intended out of it, which is to use the stories as a jumping-off point for independent research. I can see this being really valuable in a classroom setting or with a hands-on parent, but many kids are going to do what I immediately wanted to: read the three stories, make a guess and then want somewhere in the book to flip to and see if they're right. The book does have the answers in it, but they feel a bit buried between the research tips and the bibliography. I understand why the authors want to discourage kids from just flipping to the answers, but I'm also leery of a book I'm keeping in nonfiction that tells you up front "some of this information is false" without offering a clear place to identify which is. My second criticism is purely from a design perspective: the book is divided into nine chapters with three stories each (the titular two truths and a lie), all with colorful backgrounds and large photographs. All the bright color, however, make it difficult to tell at a glance where one chapter begins and another ends. If, say, they had made chapter one's splash pages all purple, and chapter two's all green, etc., the book would still be visually striking and easier to read in chunks. It's not that big a deal, it's just a missed opportunity for browsers.
So, I think this is still a worthwhile book, but a few tweaks could have improved it even more. On the plus side, I managed to identify all the fake stories, so that master's degree in information science wasn't a complete waste. (I'm sure that's what gave me an edge, and not being three times as old as the target age for this book.)
bethmitcham's review
4.0
I like this series. I think they got me once. Knowing me, I'll remember all the facts and forget which third were made-up.
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