Curious Facts About Everything: 1,500 Interesting Facts to Amaze Kids - Collins Kids - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Collins Kids

GENRE: Nonfiction, Trivia

PUBLICATION DATE: September 11, 2025.

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: As the title indicates, a collection of “curious facts” on a multitude of topics. Great for trivia lovers.

The title tell you that the book contains “Curious Facts About Everything”. The tagline informs you that this book contains 1500 interesting facts to amaze you. The GR page indicates that the book is just 160 pages long. All this together tells you one key feature of the book: it’s a bit crowded.

The book does contain 1500 facts. (They are numbered, so we don’t need to actually count them to verify the claim.) However, as the thin size of the book indicates, the facts are in a numbered list. Each page contains anywhere between 6 to 15 pieces of trivia. I am not sure if all the entries can be called “curious” in the sense of “strange” or “unusual”, but the compilation is interesting and meticulous.

The content is listed topic-wise, taken from seventy-six points of interest from varied subjects such as sports, nature, space, language, architecture, history, geography, music, inventions and discoveries, and many more. While I love that the trivia are clubbed together based on topic, I wish the topics too had been grouped as per subject. It is quite jumpy to go from ‘Inventions’ to ‘Creepy Crawlies’ to ‘The Solar System’ to ‘Food & Drink’ within a few pages. Of course, this issue pops up only if reading the book from cover to cover at a go.

As expected, the facts create varying levels of impact. A majority of the facts in the book are really interesting. Some are even astounding. Some are upsetting and/or shocking. But some are not *facts* per se. For instance, “You tend to be happier when you are busier – probably because you have no time for negative thoughts” – sounds more like the hypothesis of a research than a *fact*, especially with the word ‘probably’. Then there’s this gem: “Legend has it that Sir Isaac Newton’s dog, Diamond, knocked over a candlestick, setting important papers on fire.” – so is it a fact or an urban legend? Some are a bit vague: “If there were a motorway travelling straight up from Earth, it would take just one hour to drive up to space” – Sure, but at what speed do we drive? Another example of an incomplete fact: “Nepal’s flag is the only national flag that is not shaped like a rectangle or a square.” Excellent fact, but would have been even more impressive if it added that the flag is a dual triangle (or two juxtaposed pennants.)

There are some scattered B&W illustrations accompanying some of the facts, but not one for each. It’s not visually striking, but as the book is mainly a collection of trivia, I hope little readers focus more on the facts listed than on the lack of colour and graphics.

The title mentions that the book is for kids, but given the subjects included, the book would be better for older kids, maybe ages 8 and above. (With only some topics being easy for eight-year-olds.) As a Collins publication, the content is in the Queen’s English.

Overall, a good option for every trivia lover aged 8+, though I would have liked greater stress on the “curious”. Reading this at a go might get tedious. A better approach would be to pick a topic at random and browse through its facts, or to flip open a random page and see what facts luck throws your way. You can also use the book to play fun quiz games with your family/friends/students/annoying neighbours.

My thanks to Collins Reference for providing the DRC of “Curious Facts About Everything” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.