Who, What, When, Why

150 questions about America. And 150 proper answers, with stories and facts.

Why is the Golden Gate Bridge orange? What happened when Niagara Falls was switched off? Who sent messages the enemy could never read?

Merlin has been across America, and he has come back with a hundred and fifty questions and all the answers to go with them. Each one gets a whole page: a short answer first, then the full story, a fact box, a picture, and something Merlin could not resist telling you.

Inside, among many others:

• What brought the bald eagle back?
• Who taught himself to read in secret?
• When was a skyscraper built in 410 days?
• What building is redecorated with corn every year?
• Why are school buses that exact yellow?
• When did a crew fly a broken spaceship home?
• What lake can you float in without trying?
• Who can be a park ranger at seven years old?

Twenty-four subjects, and no page like the one before it. National parks and wildlife. The land itself, and the rivers, lakes and coasts. First Peoples, and the long road to civil rights. Presidents, inventions, space, sport, music and the movies. Building big, going west, weather at its worst, and a good many odd corners.

Every answer comes from the people who own the fact - the National Park Service, the Smithsonian, NASA, the National Weather Service, the National Archives. Nothing in this book rests on a guess.

And every page teaches a word. Where the word comes from takes one word off the page and says where English got it, from skunk to buckaroo to blizzard. Every page also points at two others, so a reader who follows the trail rather than the page numbers still gets a whole book.

Written for curious readers aged 8 to 13, and for the grown-up who ends up reading it over their shoulder. Short sentences, no talking down, and a wizard who would rather show you something interesting than explain himself.

Large format, 160 pages, illustrated throughout in black and white. Part of the Who, What, When, Why series from 1831 Publishing - and if this one goes down well, there is a book of Wales as well.