National Non-Fiction Day

National Non-Fiction Day is an annual celebration, initiated by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups in partnership with Scholastic Children’s Books. It aims to celebrate all that is brilliant about non-fiction and show that it’s not just fiction that can be read and enjoyed for pleasure.
The first National Non-Fiction Day was celebrated on the 4th November 2010, and annually thereafter on the first Thursday in November.
This website aims to give you as much information as possible about National Non-Fiction Day, as well as information about non-fiction titles, authors and available resources, to be used in the classroom or at home.

 

 

According to the introduction 23 is the smallest prime number with consecutive digits; a human cell has 23 pairs of chromosomes; julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times when he was assassinated; William Shakespeare was born and died on 23 April; John Forbes Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician and the subject of the film A Beautiful Mind, was obsessed with the number 23; Michael Jordan wore the number 23 throughout his career and David Beckham first started wearing the number 23 when he played for Real Madrid; Psalm 23, the ‘Shepherd Psalm’ is the best-known of all the psalms; there are 23 letters in the Latin alphabet (there is no J, U or W) and this is the 23rd edition of Top 10 of Everything.

All lists are all-time and global unless a specific year or territory is noted.

Unless you are an obsessive cover-to-cover reader this book is perfect for dipping into for interests sake or using for checking specific facts. It is broken up into 10 sections. Being a (possibly stereotypical) Librarian I turned to the Libraries & Loans pages in the culture and Learning Section and – hey it focuses on UK Libraries on the first page and also includes a handy definition of what makes a classic. The 10 latest Carnegie & Kate Greenaway medal winners are also mentioned under Book Awards.

This is excellent for quick reference AND calming down a group of over-excited teens (and even adults), it is amazing for exciting even the most jaded anti-book teen just by flashing the crocodile teeth on the cover their air of seen it and couldn’t care disappears and they start reading. the snippets of additional information scattered throughout the books has increased the use of a number of other non-fiction reference books in the library.

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Being armed with lots of knowledge is your first – and often best – line of defence, whether you’re dealing with a charging bull, an angry mob, a trembling earthquake, or anything else that might shake you to your core.
From the Introduction: The captain’s soothing voice announces over the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve reached our cruising altitude.” Time to sit back, relax, and watch the in-flight movie. but it smells like something’s burning. You look out the window…uh-oh, your plane’s engine is on fire! – this has actually happened to me
I needed The Worst-case Scenario Survive-O-Pedia when I was 11, and not just for the many interesting articles on surviving the worst the world has to throw at you. The information on page 51 would have saved me from near electrocution and blowing all the fuses in my family home.

Deep under the years that have built up around me like a coral reef I am at heart a teenager. I love fact books and books that you can dip into and learn often gory and gruesome facts, the survival tips are also good – I have already made copious notes on surviving shark attacks as I am going back to cape town over Christmas and there have been several incidents involving sharks at my local beach. The teens of today are not so different from the teen that I was, those that love reading are in my library every day and the kids that are not so fond of books are tempted in by books such as this one!

The information is concise, the pictures colourful and the book is written in such a way as to impart information as quickly and interestingly as possible. I keep this book behind my desk as the original that I won on twitter disappeared two days after making its way onto the shelves.

These are both really fantastic books and have proven to be popular with boys & girls in my school, I have had to adjudicate in several face-offs when different groups have wanted them at the same time!

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