I will preface this review by saying: I love trivia. I love collecting weird facts to pull out when they might be relevant (or not relevant, as is more often the case). I like knowing things about the world that are probably useless in the long run, but are so interesting regardless. It’s just…fun. So when I got the chance to review this book, I was thrilled.
I think that the book was organised quite well, given that it can be difficult to categorise trivia, especially if it pertains to history, animals, and science within the same category. If you’re looking for specific facts on a general topic, this book does well. The individual pieces of trivia were a little less precisely organised, but it is rarely easy to jump from one piece of information to another without the use of non-sequiturs. In that regard, this book does pretty well at moving along coherently.
As for the facts themselves, they were all quite interesting! I knew some of them (like I mentioned, I love trivia), but there were a fair few that I’d never heard of before. I don’t know where the information came from, as there were no references, but the trivia that I’d learned before rang true, so I will assume that the other facts are also accurate. Though, I will admit, I live in Missouri and I’ve never heard of cicadas as a pizza topping before.
The illustrations for this book work quite well, I think. They were cheeky and well executed, breaking up the constant flow of information just enough to make the information stick in my brain a bit more. I am not entirely sure why a donkey was chosen as the primary character for the illustrations, but I liked them. (I read the ebook version, and I have been informed that the print version is far more impressive as far as the illustrations go.)
Overall, I would say that this book is a fun collection of information. If you like knowing things to pull out at parties and parade about, this is definitely the book for you. Or, if you’re like me and you just like knowing things, then it’s still a worthwhile read. An excellent collection of facts.