Authors: Steve Murrie and Matthew Murrie
ISBN-13: 978-0-439-90887-0:  ISBN-10: 0-439-90887-6
Publisher: Scholastic

Click Here To Purchase Every Minute On Earth 

Every Day on Earth is 224 page book with educational, interesting and fun facts for young people (and for their adults).  To check on how the book works for kids, I had two assistant reviewers: Nick and Nate, my grandsons.  They each gave me input for the review. Nick, eleven years old said that, “… I learned a bunch of awesome things about the earth that I didn’t know before.” And that, “… it was really fun to read.”  Nate, who is eight years old said, “That book was out of this world.  So cool!”  I agree with both of  them, and more.  Their teacher (home-schooling – Mom) has said that she intends to incorporate the book into next semester’s instruction.

The authors begin their recitation of fun facts within the introduction:

“What is the origin of the minute? The Babylonians divided the period from sunrise to sunset into twelve equal parts called hours.  By the 1700s, clock makers were able to divide the hours into smaller units.  They called their units minutes, which comes from the Roman word minuta, meaning small part.  A minute may be a small unit of time, but it contains an enormous amount of happenings.”

Every Minute on Earth is nicely illustrated, in a casual cartoon-style,  by Mary Anne Lloyd.  For each page there is a snippet of information and a cartoon to accompany the fact.  This layout lends itself to browsing from subject to subject, learning and enjoying along the way. The subjects covered are arranged into several topics:

• Earth

• Space

• The Human Body

• Technology

• Animals

• Food

• Pop Culture

• Sports

In the Earth section the first factoid we learn is that five earthquakes occur every minute. The rest of the page describes the reason for earthquakes and the areas in which they occur, accompanied by a cartoon of a splitting earth.

Dead satellites are discussed and described in the section titled, Space.  The section begins with a question, “Does space have a graveyard?”  The answer to the question and descriptions of why they do not fall back to earth comprise the remainder of the subject. The cartoon is satellites with the classic RIP of a tombstone emblazoned on their hulls. 

What happens in the blink of an eye? The chapter on The Human Body tells us that, “The average person blinks about 15 times a minute.”  We also are informed that the blinking is necessary to keep the eyeball surface moistened.

The remaining sections are structured in the same pattern and contain an eclectic mixture of information served up with a generous helping of pure enjoyment.  As a sort of bonus, at the end of each chapter are activities to reinforce understanding of the chapter’s information. I think that I enjoyed the book as much as my grandsons did.  I heartily recommend it to all kids who can read (regardless of age).