Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

I think kids will LOVE this.

It is informative but also very funny for kids. The sense of humor is clearly made for them although I as an adult had a great time reading it.

If you're at all familiar with the podcast "Stuff You Should Know" then you have a pretty good idea of what you'll find in this book. In their typical humorous and conversational tone Clark and Bryant dig into the history of everyday items and events. The topics are all over the place but remain appropriate for a young audience. The vocabulary is careful and well explained but never talks down to it's intended audience. This is a great assortment of random information that will inform and entertain.

This is such a cool book. It’s interesting, entertaining, clever, funny, and actually makes reading the footnotes worthwhile. I laughed so hard at some of the footnotes, I thought what a shame it is so many footnotes are not this engaging! My favorite footnote was the one where they said that they wanted to remove a pump at the publisher wouldn’t let them.

You’ll have to read the book to find it. Lol.

I could totally see recommending this to my students, it’s just interesting enough that you really can’t put it down!

My thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the advanced readers copy of this book. Please note my review is independent and my opinions are my own.

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for this advance copy. This was a fun and informative book about some unique topics. I know I learned a few things!

I've listened to this podcast before, and I was interested in the adult book they published a while ago, so when this came up, I jumped at the chance. I love this type of nonfiction book, sort of the short story version of nonfiction that allows us to learn about a lot of neat things in one book. I really enjoyed reading this one, and I often found myself saying, "Did you know..." to friends and family!! I highly recommend this NF for MG/YA and even adults! Can't wait to go back to read the adult book, now, too.

I've listened to the podcast and I actually read the adult version of Stuff You Should Know and this is...pretty repetitious. I'm not certain that the topics they picked are ones that kids are really dying to know about and are instead just topics from the first book that they thought were 'kid friendly.' It's an easy read, I think the kids will like the format, but I don't know that it's a great one.

As with any nonfiction book of this type kids will pick and choose the topics that look most interesting to them. In particular the Mr. Potato Head and the Pet Rock chapters will pull in the younger kids. As an adult I found this book to have well researched and fascinating information.

I would describe this book as a book of random half interesting notes about random half interesting items. The authors of the book do have a pod cast that is fun but translating that to a book just didn't pan out. I liked the variety of items written but it just felt like there was no order to them. Do I think a kid would read this? Not really. I do think that parents could read it and share the fun tidbits with the kids though. Not a bad book just not "mind-blowing."

I have never heard of the authors or their podcast, so I wasn't sure what to expect with this book. Based on the cover art, I wouldn't guess this was a middle-grade book. I also don't really understand why the topics are SO varied, from Mr. Potato Head to facial hair to a crime museum. I found it interesting as an adult, but my middle-grade neighbor wasn't into it. I could see this as maybe something a parent may read with a child.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reading of Stuff Kids Should Know by Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark.

The cover and the content don’t match in my opinion. I originally voted a ‘like’ for the cover based on the layout and what I thought the target audience was. After just the first few pages I changed my mind about the cover as I no longer felt that the cover matched the content. To me the cover indicated the target audience was in the 5-12 year old range. As a parent of two children, I can’t honestly say that my kids at the presumed target age would have enjoyed reading. It is too detailed with a winded history of each subject to hold the average child’s attention in the mentioned age range.
This book has only fourteen subjects it touches on but each of them is fully developed, giving as much information on each to fill a documentary. As an adult, I found the content interesting. For me the Mr. Potato Head from chapter one was one that I know will carry the information learned with me. I have heard of dolls made from gourds and corn husks but never from a potato. Larger body-part pieces like what Mr. Potato Head uses are now sold at Halloween for use in jack-o-lanterns.

Based on the writing and content I gave this book a solid four star rating. The cover is my hang up, it really depends on what the true age range target is as to whether or not I’d vote high or low for it -as a match to the content. The book cover targets a young audience while the content targets a more mature audience with an interesting in collecting all sorts of random information. The content and cover don’t really align well.

This. Book. Is. Life.
I wish I had this book and then 6202922 books exactly like this one when I was growing up.
All my life I have been a hoarder of random info. And once I find some random fact I didn’t know before, I always want to know a tad bit more about it, and then a tad tad tad bit even more so. And this book does just that. It feeds you random facts and then goes a bit deeper. And then a little bit deeper, and then spins off a little bit to go even deeper. And then, if that was not enough, there are footnotes. And then references at the end of the book too. Nice. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. And those seemingly absolutely random topics, random choice of subjects – even more perfect.
This is absolutely exciting. This book is absolute knowledge hoarders’ shortcut to paradise. I will be stalking my tween with this book now. I want her to soak up the random fun facts about this and that, and get hooked on learning more about anything, about everything there is. This book is just so, so awesome, and the randomness of the subjects makes it even more awesome. Did I say it was awesome? Yeah, it was awesome.
The person who wrote this book should be writing all sorts of books for school. With this approach, any school subject would become breathtakingly exciting.

Though I am definitely not the intended audience for this book, I really enjoyed all of the subjects talked about and how it was all organized. I was not a fan of the way the author connected with the reader; it was too conversational and almost cringey, though I am absolutely willing to overlook this because, again, I am not the intended audience. I strongly believe kids would love this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

A fun, light-hearted book of facts. It would be a good option for kids who are interested in podcasts. I do wish the chapters were tied together somehow, but I don't think a casual reader will mind.

Stuff Kids Should Know is a book written by two friends that do a popular podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the footnotes are not to be missed. With all that being said I'm not sure a kid would read this book but more like adults reading and then passing on the information to kids.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. I thought this was an interesting book on various facts and inventions. It ran the gamut from water dowsing history to the Jersey Devil. If you like learning the history behinds things, this would be a good place to start.

What do beards, demolition derbies, the Jersey Devil, and dowsing rods have in common? Nothing, so I can't see an audience for this book. It is supremely unexceptional. I'll give credit for including a disorganized handful of sources toward the final pages (I had come to assume there would be none at all) but there's nothing else to lend a modicum of authority to the text, and there's not much I can take away from a book that offers ornithological information "cobbled together from various resources." Be clearer and narrow down the theme of the text. Reading "Stuff Kids Should Know" is like reading a Mad Libs sheet.