Two Truths and A Lie Series

★ “Inspired by a parlor game, the authors mix two facts about an aspect of the natural world (plants, animals, and even humans) with one untruth, and invite readers to pick out the bogus entry from each trio. Each entry includes specific (or at least plausible) scientific details, names of actual researchers, and, along, with colorful graphic images, often even photographs (doctored or otherwise). Each group of three also features sidebar definitions, projects to try, or thorny scientific issues to ponder, and a secondary list of hard-to-credit facts, body parts, medical procedures, or other items—each with an embedded ringer. Readers can check their guesses at the back, where generous source notes for all the non-spurious content offered leads to further study. A brief but savvy guide to responsible research methods adds further luster to this crowdpleaser.” —Booklist, starred

“The first of a series that presents Ripley’s Believe It or Not–type true stories about the natural world alongside Barnum-esque fabrications and challenges readers to discern the real from the fake… Most of these invented phenomena are convincing and difficult to separate from the real. It is up to readers to sort out the fakes from the facts. Sound advice is given on how to seek and evaluate information online, and, for the impatient, the fakes are revealed in an appendix. An engaging, entertaining compendium that will inform and confound.” —Kirkus

“Truth is much stranger than fiction, as Paquette and Thompson demonstrate in these themed groupings of nature articles, organized to challenge readers to expose the fake within each set… The game format is flexible enough for individual challenge or team play, and the investigations into Plants/Fungi, Animals, and Humans (and let’s not start quibbling here about the separate Animal/Human categories) strongly commend this for classroom use. Hopefully the It’s Alive! subtitle is a harbinger of more titles to come; this could be addictive.” —BCCB