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.

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!

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

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.

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.

Join Bartholomew Cubbins in Dr. Seuss’s Caldecott Honor–winning picture book about a king’s magical mishap! Bored with rain, sunshine, fog, and snow, King Derwin of Didd summons his royal magicians to create something new and exciting to fall from the sky. What he gets is a storm of sticky green goo called Oobleck—which soon wreaks havock all over his kingdom! But with the assistance of the wise page boy Bartholomew, the king (along with young readers) learns that the simplest words can sometimes solve the stickiest problems.

Based on the series produced for the BBC World Service Who thought up paper money? How did the contraceptive pill change the face of the legal profession? Why was the horse collar as important for human progress as the steam engine? How did the humble spreadsheet turn the world of finance upside-down? The world economy defies comprehension. A continuously-changing system of immense complexity, it offers over ten billion distinct products and services, doubles in size every fifteen years, and links almost every one of the planet's seven billion people. It delivers astonishing luxury to hundreds of millions. It also leaves hundreds of millions behind, puts tremendous strains on the ecosystem, and has an alarming habit of stalling. Nobody is in charge of it. Indeed, no individual understands more than a fraction of what's going on. How can we make sense of this bewildering system on which our lives depend? From the tally-stick to Bitcoin, the canal lock to the jumbo jet, each invention in Tim Harford's fascinating new book has its own curious, surprising and memorable story, a vignette against a grand backdrop. Step by step, readers will start to understand where we are, how we got here, and where we might be going next. Hidden connections will be laid bare: how the barcode undermined family corner shops; why the gramophone widened inequality; how barbed wire shaped America. We'll meet the characters who developed some of these inventions, profited from them, or were ruined by them. We'll trace the economic principles that help to explain their transformative effects. And we'll ask what lessons we can learn to make wise use of future inventions, in a world where the pace of innovation will only accelerate.