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Author & Illustrators

Mike Barfield Books

From the missing pages of the Library of Alexandria to the whereabouts of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, The World’s Last Mammoth and other Missing Marvels is a treasure trove of mysterious and long-gone things: absent animals, bygone buildings, missing monarchs, past palaces and more… But all is NOT lost – along the way you’ll also find the survivors and modern marvels of things gone by.

Explore the lost splendour of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, ponder the fate of historical figures like Cleopatra or Genghis Khan and unravel the mystery behind Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. And while we may no longer have dinosaurs, we have fascinating fossils to ogle at instead. We can call the Dodo’s closet-living relative, the Nicobar Pigeon, and even though the dancing plague of 1518 is long gone, dance trends like Gangnam style still spread like wildfire today.

This book is a thrilling exploration of things long gone but never forgotten. Be warned – you may find yourself getting lost in laughter along the way!

Take a colourful tour through the prehistoric animal kingdom with this hilarious collection of non-fiction comics from award-winning author Mike Barfield and illustrator Paula Bossio.

From the earliest life forms living under the ocean, to the most fearsome dinosaurs, all the way through to early mammals like the woolly mammoth, this book tells the story of what life was really like on early Earth. Discover what these animals looked like, where they lived and how they survived (or didn’t) in the most extreme conditions.
Split into chapters covering the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras, the book covers animals from all over the world, with each one telling its own life story. Also featured are ‘Dead Cool’ pages showing some of the stranger animals of each period, and ‘Living Legends’ pages looking at the true survivors who are still around today.
This is a funny, accessible guide to the astonishing animals who once thrived in a world that looked very different to the world of today.

A Day in the Life of Fossils, Fire and Other Fantastic Finds gives a sweeping journey through the history of discovery in comic book form.

The subjects are wildly and wonderfully diverse in scope and scale. As the introduction states, you can jump in anywhere. Each page tells its own story of a discovery. As with the previous titles in the A Day in the Life series (such as A Day in the Life of an Astronaut, Mars and the Distant Stars and A Day in the Life of a Poo, A Gnu and You), this book stretches the brain in many directions. The examples are drawn from across the sciences, geography and history, and the appealing short-form bursts of information are great for opening windows to new potential interests.

The comic strip format blends well with the jokes that break up the facts. It’s fun and informative, and would be great for social reading times.

Mike Barfield delivers another wide-ranging and well-researched non-fiction book in comic book form.

Like the “Life in the Day of“ series, this book goes beyond the boundaries of National Curriculum topics and is glorious for all curious minds, both young and old. In between the descriptions of sometimes very obscure and improbable jobs, there are mini biographies of key historical figures like Bessie Colman and Lily Parr.

The book can either be read as a whole, or is great for children to browse and read together, sharing the parts that interest them most. Franziska Hollbacher’s artwork is bold and clear and complements the humour of the book well.

This unique non-fiction book features lots of fun facts about interesting inventions and the people who invented them. If you like facts, figures and dates, this book is full of them – find out who invented the first paper straw, how Super Soakers were developed and when the first basketball game was played.

The information is presented in bite-sized chunks, with humour and illustrations to capture the attention of the reader. The language and sentence structures are aspirational and this book will appeal to older primary readers in search of information to impress their friends, families and teachers.

This colourful, cartoon-style reference book brings facts to life with humour and fun illustrations. Following on from the enormous success of its award-winning predecessors, this latest book in the ‘Day in the Life Of..’ series is packed full of information and facts about space, presented in an entertaining comic style that is a joy to read.

Readers will enjoy the variety of scientific information, which felt like a balanced view of different areas, including science, technology, astronomy and the history of space travel. This would be a great book for children who love a highly visual element to what they read. Readers could dip in and out of the various topics individually, or teachers could choose sections to share as a class when exploring related topics. When added to a classroom library, this series is sure to be in high demand during independent reading time. 

Did you know that without the ‘lead’ in your pencil, there would be no life on Earth? Just about everything in the universe is made from only 92 elements – and from aluminium to zinc, many of them are hiding in your very own home!

Packed with Lauren Humphrey’s quirky illustrations and written by the multi-talented Mike Barfield, this unique introduction to the elements in the periodic table will excite all young readers as they help Sherlock Ohms solve the mystery of how absolutely everything came to exist!

If you’ve ever wanted to know what a panda does all day long, how your heart manages to shift all that blood around your body or what makes a rainbow shine, you’ve come to the right book.

A Day in the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You features the answers to all of these questions and many more, all told in a super-fun comic book format in three awesome sections: Human Body, Animal Kingdom and Earth and Science. A Day in the Life… is packed with facts, laughs and amazing illustrations you can dive into all day long.

Meet your grumpy liver that has to do practically EVERYTHING; your trusty hands that are very, well, handy; the spiky porcupines ready to charge; lonely Mars rovers abandoned on the Red Planet; raging tornadoes ready to rip through the pages of the book and bubbly volcanoes ready to blow.

All entries are told in the fun, friendly and informative style of Mike Barfield, and are brought to life by the colour-explosion of Jess Bradley’s awesome illustrations.

Science is entertaining… science is funny… science is downright ridiculous!
Explore the wacky world of STEM in this comic book of exciting experiments .
Defy gravity with air pressure!
Extract DNA from a living thing!
Learn the science of SLIME!
Create a lightning bolt in the dark!
Prove theories about light with Newton’s wheel!
…and much more! Discover STEM topics through the lives of over 40 scientists and their amazing discoveries. Read the comic strips then have a go at each STEM experiment yourself. Featuring a diverse range of scientists throughout history this book will inspire you to give science a go! Are you ready?

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Stone Girl Bone Girl

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Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?

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