The Big Book of Mysteries - by Tom Adams (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A captivating new gift book featuring over 100 real-life mysteries that might just give you goosebumps!

Does the Loch Ness monster really exist? Whatever happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste? And where exactly are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

Get ready to be amazed as you uncover the world's greatest mysteries, from Bigfoot to the Bermuda Triangle. Including alien abductions, haunted houses, mind-blowing natural phenomena, and much more, this book will explain the extraordinary -unless the extraordinary can't be explained, of course. Then you'll just have to make up your own mind . . .

With atmospheric artwork, compelling case studies, and a seriously stand-out neon cover, this is a haunting collection of mysteries that you won't be able to put down.

From the Back Cover

Does the Loch Ness monster really exist? What ever happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste? And where exactly are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

Get ready to be amazed as you uncover the world's greatest mysteries, from Bigfoot to the Bermuda Triangle. Including alien abductions, haunted houses, mind-blowing natural phenomena and much more, this book will explain the extraordinary - unless the extraordinary can't be explained, of course. Then you'll just have to make up your own mind . . .

Review Quotes

Gr 3-6-Kids are introduced to 100 well-known, though often debated, mysteries, delusions, and phenomena. While the book cannot prove the validity of each, it does an excellent job providing as much information available, allowing readers to decide for themselves. Adams presents young people with information on sightings, encounters, and tales that range in subject from the Bermuda Triangle to Bigfoot. This browsable compendium has something of interest for every reader. Painterly illustrations offer visual representations of the content that will prove helpful to young readers taking on some of these heavier topics.

VERDICT -Recommended for general purchase for a youth nonfiction or reference collection. This is also an excellent title for reluctant readers who could carve out one or two "mysteries" in one sitting.

--Kristen Todd-Wurm, School Library Journal

Summary reports on more than 100 unexplained appearances, disappearances, natural phenomena, historical puzzles, and mass delusions.
Loose organization, not to mention the sheer number of entries, makes this heavy reading taken cover to cover but also guarantees there will be something to pique any sort of interest. Leading off with a warning to readers to be skeptical of claims from iffy sources like social media but then loading the unlikelier reaches of what follows with plenty of what-ifs and maybe-so's, Adams pours out reports of sightings or close encounters with UFOs, sea monsters, rains of blood or fish, and ghosts to go with tallies of vanished or never-were places (Atlantis, Hy-Brasil, Veneta), strange artifacts from Nazca Lines to the Voynich manuscript, and more. Cryptids are covered, too-along with Mothman and the Jersey Devil, the author discusses a "Vegetable Man" ("It looked just like a human stick of celery!") in West Virginia. Still, chucking in obvious (in retrospect) hoaxes like Piltdown man, he perceptively observes that the willingness to believe can trump objective reality (one of his more telling cases in point being the way placebo medications sometimes actually work). Imamura mixes diverse human figures into painted representations of creatures fictive or otherwise, atmospheric oddities, and archaeological or geological wonders.
Better for dips than dives but rich fare for fans of the odd and uncanny. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)

--Kirkus Reviews

[The Big Book of Mysteries] has something of interest for every reader... This is also an excellent title for reluctant readers who could carve out one or two "mysteries" in one sitting.
--Kristen Todd-Wurm, School Library Journal

About the Author

Tom Adams (Author)
Tom Adams is a children's author who juggles his time between writing books and making television programs. When he's not at his desk writing, he's often scribbling ideas for books and TV shows down in his notebook. He likes lots of sports, cooking, walking, and playing the guitar, but is slowly realizing that his children are better than him at most of these things. He dislikes weeding the garden but does it anyway. He was born in Yorkshire but now lives with his wife and their three teenage sons in in Kent, England

Yas Imamura (Illustrator)
Yas Imamura is an Asian American illustrator whose work includes collaborations with Anthropologie and Sanrio, as well as her growing list of children's books. Her preferred materials are gouache and watercolor and she often finds herself drawn to projects that are playful, mysterious, and a little offbeat. She lives in Portland, Oregon.