About the book
Tour 100 of the world’s islands from the comfort of your own sofa. Amazing Islands introduces specific places and it also looks at the geography behind island formation.
A contents page introduces the different subjects and each double-page spread represents a chapter. With much of the page given over to illustration and text divided into boxes of one or two short paragraphs, this title is ideal for younger readers. It is a brilliant introduction to non-fiction books and also has ‘flickability’ – a very important quality in early information books which are often shared between children or between a child and an adult. Favourite facts can easily be read aloud and discussed, and the accompanying illustrations allow the reader to visualise places they might never have seen.
At the centre of the book is a world map – the double page spread made bigger with the help of flaps – that shows the location of every island referenced in the book.
I was lucky enough to be invited on to the blog tour for this title and to receive a guest piece from author Sabrina Weiss. Thank you very much to Sabrina for your time and to Laura Smythe PR for organising.
Author Sabrina Weiss on picking which islands to include in the book
100 islands around the world. I’d pack my bags in a heartbeat and set off to explore each one of them. From an island entirely made of shells to another that has existed for less than six years, there are so many different kinds of islands. Some are not much more than a bare rock, which makes it virtually impossible to put a figure on the number of islands that exist on Earth. The largest archipelagic country, Indonesia, is made up of over 17,000 islands alone.
Deciding which 100 islands to include in our new book, Amazing Islands, was no easy task. The islands that fascinate me the most are the ones that are difficult to get to. Think of a remote island and you might be picturing unspoilt beaches, turquoise water and surrounding coral reefs teeming with sea turtles and a wealth of fish species. Perhaps you are thinking of the Philippines, a group of islands famed for its picturesque beaches and rich marine life. But what if I told you there was a tiny volcano that sits on a lake inside a much bigger volcanic crater sitting on a lake? To picture this one, try Google Earth for a bird’s eye view.
The idea for this book was to cover all ocean regions and show the diversity of landscapes that have appeared on our planet. We get to see islands where animals and plants thrive in isolation and visit island communities where the people we meet teach us about their culture; we get to explore islands that made history and islands that are history.
With planes parked on runways and ships moored in ports, the only way to explore the world right now is from home. Believe me, it can be great fun too. Read about the islands in this book, explore them in the fold-out map, or zoom in on a virtual globe to look for the secluded places you are perhaps less familiar with.
Telling the stories of so many incredible islands transported me across tens of thousands of kilometres to a hundred incredible encounters – and I hope it will do the same for you and your children. I want Amazing Islands to inspire many young explorers and be the starting point for many island adventures to come, all powered by the curious minds that this book excites.
- AMAZING ISLANDS is written by Sabrina Weiss (@sabrinamweiss) and illustrated by Kerry Hyndman (@kerryhyndman) out now in hardback (£14.99, What on Earth Books)
