Thank you to Guinness World Records for providing a complimentary product sample for us to base this review upon. All opinions expressed are my own.
The Guinness World Records is a huge company who makes a book every year of world records that is categorized by types of records. I have five Guinness World Records books so far, including the 2014 book. The 2014 GWR book is very different from all the other books because there is a free See It 3D app for your Android or iOS phone or tablet. The app makes 3D images pop-up on the screen that aren't there in the 2-dimensional book, using augmented reality technology and your device's camera. Each 3D image has a special feature that allow you to do things that affect the image. Some things that pop-up aren't images that you can play with, but are videos of the records in the making.
On page 26 and 27, there is one of my favorite 3D images about Prehistoric Life. It is a Spinosaurus, the largest carnivorous dinosaur, compared to the sizes of a London phone booth and a double-decker bus. There are three buttons used to control the 3D image. One moves it around the page, another makes it roar, and the last one makes it bite down with its jaws. It would have been even cooler if we could make the Spinosaurus destroy the double-decker bus and the phone booth.
The app on page 14 and 15, the Restless Planet, makes an image of the world flattened out on a flat surface. Then, with the press of a button, it rolls up into a globe. If you press the button on the bottom right corner, you can pick a certain natural disaster that you want to see pictures of. It also tells you which natural disaster it is and where it happened. My favorite natural disaster from this feature of the app is volcanoes. It is my favorite because it is neat to see pictures of volcanoes erupting.
On page 28 to 29, the section on Snakes, the 3D image is a giant spitting cobra popping out of a lidded basket and spitting poison all over your screen. This page is one of my favorites because you get to see how a giant spitting cobra would act in that situation, plus it is very action-packed.
At the beginning of the section Animal Extremes is Hercules, an adult male liger. A liger is a mix of a lion and a tiger. Hercules is the largest living cat in the world. This is quite a coincidence because I saw Hercules in person at the Tiger Show at King Richard's Faire in 2012, but unfortunately in 2013 he retired. I like this section because it's great to see Hercules in the Guinness World Records book.
I recommend the 2014 Guinness World Records book as a Holiday present to kids 7 and up. There are cool photographs if the child can't read all the words. I hope that, in the future, the next book will have augmented reality features for more pages, as the 2014 book only contains a handful. To learn more about the 2014 GWR book, visit www.GuinnessWorldRecords.com.
