Bill Bryson's books are so funny and so well-loved that it's hard to recommend one without recommending all of them. His 2003 foray into the world of science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, applied the wonderful humor and storytelling of his popular travel books to science and natural history. Now he's back with a version of that book for kids (roughly 9 and up). Bryson covers a range of fascinating topics -  atoms, the Big Bang, distances in space, the saltiness of the sea, human civilizations, to name just a few - and manages to keep the language conversational and engaging at all times. If I'd gotten this book for Christmas when I was young I'd have been disappointed for about 5 seconds and then I would have spent the entire day reading it from start to finish.  I also would have had to fight off the adults who wanted to read it. ~Lillian