In the Dark: The Science of What Happens at Night

What things go ‘bump’ and why?

Author: Lisa Deresti Betik and Josh Holinaty

Publisher: Kids Can Press

Price: £15.99 / $18.99

Release: 1 September

What better way to dispel the monsters hiding under the bed and those shades that haunt the corners of the bedroom than to give your child a better understanding of what goes on in the world when they go to sleep?

In the Dark is a light, entertaining and beautifully illustrated book for bedtime, if you like, but it’s for any time really. The author has chosen an unusual catch-all topic that cherrypicks and expands upon interesting points in human biology, wildlife, the environment, astronomy and more. For example, you can expect to learn how owls echolocate their prey, the phases of the Moon, what happens in the ‘deep dark sea’ at night, why some people snore and even how plants calculate complicated mathematical sums when it’s dark.

Lisa Deresti Betik’s engaging and accessible writing is accompanied by Josh Holinaty's wonderful illustrations in the form of short comic strips, infographics, annotations and cutaways – a staple of How It Works magazine features – coloured in the faded pinks, navy blues and greys of twilight. Each topic is given no more than a page each, with short but pithy piece text that delivers curious facts on STEM-related topics that we’d wager many adults wouldn’t be aware of. At 52 tightly written pages, it’s shorter than we’d have liked, but only because we enjoyed it so much. There’s also a short glossary of terms at the back that breaks down some of the harder science terms for younger readers and is worth a read in itself.

For primary-aged children, there’s ample value for money here: it will be a book they will return to time and time again. We only fear the unknown, and by arming your little ones with this knowledge, they will be more than capable of fending off nightmares by themselves when the lights go out.

“What better way to dispel the monsters hiding under the bed?"