Wonderground

As Leonardo da Vinci wrote centuries ago, ‘We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.’ With ‘Wonderground’, Sarah Garré and Heleen Deroo want to change that. In five themed parts, the two scientists guide young and not-so-young readers through the thrilling underground world. We first travel past rocks and fossils, through the layers of our planet, before discovering how different the ground is at different parts of the globe, and that it’s bursting with life. In part four we learn that the generous earth gives us our food, our clean drinking water and our raw materials, and even reveals treasures that belonged to our ancestors. The book ends with a call for conservation, sustainable land management and climate action.

This big, visually lively book combines facts and discoveries with surprising details and inventive things to do, such as making compost or testing the structure of the soil. The many playfully informative illustrations in a cartoonish style make the invisible world under the ground visible. The bright colours and the humour in the drawings bring the text to life. A very special book for future subterranean heroes.