The best popular science series around. The topics span every field of knowledge: linguistics, history, geography, chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology. New books come out all the time, and of course you'll want to collect the whole set. Luckily, they're priced so that you won't have to save up for long by skipping school lunches. The text in these books isn't exactly difficult, but there's a lot of it, and it is, naturally, scientific; the font is small and the pictures are black and white. In other words, the series is aimed at teens, but it's best read as a whole family: it really is incredibly interesting and educational. If your child still finds it hard to read alone, read one chapter aloud together. Or try this: during the day, everyone in the family reads one chapter on their own, and then, say, over dinner, everyone takes turns sharing their new discoveries. Some books in the series are more challenging than others. Everything by Perelman is like olympiad-level brain teasers (for kids who are passionate about science). Others are more mainstream: On the Trail of Legends, Quirks of Nature, Even a Crocodile Has Friends, and so on. "Simple Science for Kids" from Avanta. We recommend it to anyone curious about how the world works.
