Contents 1.
Why We Sleep
9.
Asleep in Space
2.
What Are Dreams?
10.
Rock-a-bye Sleeping
3.
Heading to Bed
11.
Snoozing on the Move
4.
Sleeping Champions
12.
Remarkable Hibernators
5.
Record-breaking Beds
13.
A Grizzly Bear’s Winter
6.
King Tut’s Beds
14.
Watery Beds
7.
Beds Around the World
15.
How on Earth Do they Sleep?
8.
The Kang Stove Bed
16.
Night Hunters
17.
The Great Sleep Escape
25.
Moon Mysteries
18.
Sunrise to Sunset
26.
Fly Me to the Moon
19.
The Midnight Sun
27.
A Busy Night at the Hospital
20.
The Northern Lights
28.
Find It, Fix It!
21.
A Trip to the Stars
29.
The Rush to Market
22.
Sky Gazing
30. Lullabies
23.
Stories in the Stars
Sources
24.
I See the Moon
Index
Remarkable Hibernators When winter comes, we pull on thick coats and woolly socks. We eat warm food and drink hot chocolate by the fire – we like to be cosy! But animals can’t do these things. So, what do they do when the weather freezes and there’s nothing left to eat? They find a safe place to take a good, long nap until spring arrives and their food returns. This rest is called hibernation, and some animals have rather surprising ways of doing it… Ladybirds hibernate in groups under tree bark or tucked away inside leaves.
Some people call this snuggly bug-gathering a loveliness of ladybirds!
By the time winter arrives, only the queen bumble bee is alive. She digs a hole in the ground and hibernates all on her own until spring arrives. Then she buzzes off to find a nest to lay her eggs in. 50
The painted turtles of North America have an amazing way of hibernating under water. Like you and me, they need to breathe in a gas called oxygen, which is in the air. During the warmer months, turtles pop their heads above the water and take a breath, but what do they do in the winter when the water has a lid of ice over it? Answer: they breathe with their bottoms!
Turtles hibernate on the pond floor, where it is warmer. And instead of breathing through their nostrils and mouth, they take in oxygen from the water through their skin and across their cloaca (that’s their bum)! 51
Buried beneath the winter snow which covers the forest floors of North America, there are frozen frogs. They are Wood Frogs. If you touched one, it would feel like a frog-shaped ice cube. If you searched for a heartbeat, you wouldn’t find one. And its blood would actually be frozen. In fact, this little amphibian would appear to be completely dead. But even though the frog is icy and statue-still, it isn’t dead, it’s hibernating.
So this is how it happens . . . As winter approaches, Wood Frogs hop inside logs or shuffle under a pile of leaves and wait for the snow to cover them up. This gives them a little bit of protection, but it’s not enough to stop them turning into frogsicles! 52
As soon as the first ice crystal touches the frog, its body releases a special sugar which protects its insides from the cold.
Then over half of the frog’s body freezes – enough to stop its heart from beating and its blood from flowing through its body. It stays frozen for two or three months until spring arrives and its heart starts up and its breathing returns. The defrosted frog immediately hops off to find a mate! 53
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Grizzly bears have an amazing sense of smell and can sniff out a meal from over a mile away. They are omnivorous, which means they eat anything nutritious that they can find, from berries, roots and pine nuts to deer, rodents and worms. But when autumn comes, their appetite gets twice as big . . . they simply cannot get enough to eat! This extreme eating stage is called hyperphagia.
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In this stage, bears never feel full and eat over 40kg of food every day. That’s about the same weight as three hundred blueberry muffins (though it depends on the size of the muffins, of course)! During this time, they can double their body weight. And they need to: the fat stored in their bodies will help them survive without food and water for several months while they sleep.
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More pages from inside the book . . .
Tutankhamun, or King Tut, was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. Egyptian people believed Pharaohs were gods who lived on Earth. Tutankhamun was born around 1346 BCE and took over the throne when he was just nine years old. When Tutankhamun died, aged about 18, he was given a royal treatment . . .
un’s ham tank e that h Tu ls fe it e w g ing fterli Alon everyth in his a l r y, e fu v d e o o s : b u b t be tom migh to the cluding , in t in rs wen objects, , dagge 0 d es 5,00 ts, gam ents an io m char l instru beds! a le ic mus incredib y man
The A belie ncient Egy ved p life t calle hat yo tians u li d you died the ‘aft ved a n erlife . e ’ wh w en
30
31
The beds found in Tutankhamun’s tomb were all different, and they were beautifully carved and decorated. Lion Bed
The beds had elaborate designs and were decorated with silver, bronze, ebony, ivory and jewels. Their legs were carved to resemble animal legs.
Four headrests were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. They were special ones, made of ivory, gold and glass, and they were beautifully decorated. The Ancient Egyptians used headrests instead of pillows. They don’t look very comfortable, but they did use linen cushions to make them more cosy. The headrests allowed air to move around the sleeping person’s neck and head, keeping them cool. They also protected the sleepers’ fancy hair-style, and stopped creepy crawlies from climbing onto their face!
Cow Bed Because the beds were slanted, with the sleeper’s head raised, they had footboards to stop the sleeper from sliding down.
Ammut Bed This bed has a hippopotamus’ head, lion’s legs, and the body of a crocodile.
32
*Based on one book weighing 800g
He was mummified, which means his body was wrapped in strips of cloth. A funeral mask was placed on his face. It was solid gold, and weighed over 10 kilos, which is as heavy as twelve copies of this book. He was put into a solid gold coffin . . . which went into another gold covered coffin . . . then into another gold covered coffin! This went into a stone sarcophagus.
King Tut’s Beds
Do you need a good, loooooong sleep? Then perhaps you could try biggest bed in the world. Made for the summer festival of St. Gregorius in Hertme, Netherlands, it was roughly the same size as a basketball court!
World’s biggest patchwork quilt
World’s biggest bed
And what could be more fitting for the biggest beds in the world than… the world’s biggest patchwork quilt? Made in Portugal in 2000, it’s called the Manta da Cultura, which means the Patchwork for Culture. It takes up the same amount of space as three football pitches! 22
23
From Earth, the Moon looks as smooth and round as a marble! But if you look closely on a really clear night, you’ll see splat marks from all the giant asteroids and meteoroids that have crashed into it over billions of years. All that knocking around created huge mountains and enormous dips called craters. The darker parts are called maria, which is the ancient Latin word for seas. Astronomers once thought there had been water on the Moon, but that it had dried up. Now they know that’s not true at all. Between 4.2 and 1.2 billion years ago, when the Moon was still young, fiery volcanoes spewed out hot rock called lava. When the lava cooled, it formed the maria.
Apart from mountains and craters on the Moon, you won’t find much else. If you’re looking for trees, or water, or even clouds, you can forget it! You might find a tiny amount of ancient ice in craters at the north and south poles, but not much. Up close, this rocky ball is covered with powdery stuff called regolith, which is dust and rocks to you and me. At night-time, it’s colder than you could ever imagine. But when the Sun shines, it becomes so hot it’s beyond boiling. There isn’t any air on the Moon, which is why astronauts have to wear special suits when they’re walking on the surface. It’s perfectly still and quiet.
With no water, no clouds, no air, no life, the Moon has stayed unchanged in the night sky for billions of years. 130
131
5-Minute Really True Stories for Bedtime
Ages: 4–8 years Price: £12.99 Format: Hardback Extent: 192 pages Trim size: 267 x 197 mm Pub date: 15th October 2020 ISBN: 978-1-9129206-4-8 Description Why do we sleep? Do animals dream? Where is the oldest bed in the world? In this compendium of 5-minute true stories, you will travel to Ancient Egypt to explore the five beds of Tutankhamun, jet off into space to see how astronauts get ready for bed, and plunge underwater to learn how hibernating turtles breathe through their bottoms. With up-to-the-minute, expert information and stunning illustrations, this book is the ultimate brainy bedtime companion for young children.
Selling points • The ultimate brainy bedtime book: because you consolidate your memories while you sleep, bedtime is an ideal moment for children to learn new things • Includes thirty true stories which will inspire wonder and delight, with all facts verified by Britannica experts • Lavishly illustrated on every page with specially commissioned artwork • Features original writing by Sally Symes, Rachel Valentine, Jackie McCann and Jen Arena, and stunning artwork by Amy Grimes, Maddy Vian, Anneli Bray, Jacqui Lee, Christine Cuddihy, Katie Rewse, Natalie Smillie, Joanne Liu, Olivia Holden and Katie Wilson
Biographical note Britannica Group is a global education leader with over 250 years of dedication to seeking out facts and providing insight into the mysteries of the universe. Its beloved Encyclopaedia Britannica is the world’s oldest English-language general encyclopedia, first published in 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Today, Britannica continues to create innovative and engaging learning experiences through books, digital content and educational tools. Over three thousand expert contributors have helped make Britannica what it is today, including former US presidents, professional athletes, Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners. Britannica’s mission to inspire curiosity and the joy of learning helps build the world’s future thinkers and innovators.
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