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Children — girls and boys — should spend more time outdoors, with their faces away from TV and computer screens. (This goes for grownups, too.) With summer fast approaching, this handy little book is a perfect resource for when your child is bored and restless. Plant seeds, make a tent, make a garden rake from an old umbrella, or build a playhouse that you can store in your closet. The Girl Mechanic Goes Outdoors is more technical than you might think, so have a ruler, some basic tools, and some paper handy while tackling some of the more involved projects. Inspiring and

Is Gever Tulley a parent? I don't know, but he founded Tinkering School, a program where kids build stuff using real power tools. While browsing through his new book, Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do), I am transported to my own childhood of licking batteries, blowing up marshmallows in the microwave, and climbing trees. My friends and I used to roam around our suburban woods for hours, a little bit like a suburban version of Lord of the Flies. How sad that kids nowadays only get to have fun on "play dates" and organized activities.

Bertrand Russell hasn't been this entertaining since Bruce Duffy's 1987 novel The World As I Found It. Logicomix is an astoundingly entertaining graphic novel about the most unlikely of subjects: Bertrand Russell's struggle to find the logical foundation of all mathematics. While this may sound dry to liberal arts majors, this subject is addressed superbly by the authors, Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou. In fact, the authors introduce themselves to us, the readers, at the beginning of Logicomix to explain why they chose to tell this story in graphic novel form instead of "Logic for Dummies." To explain mathematical concepts to the masses, the authors jump the story around from the present time — how an ATM uses algorithmic processes — to Bertrand Russell's era, when he and Wittgenstein debated logic and proofs. It's wonderful to lose yourself in graphic novels, and Logicomix is like falling into an intellectual, heady

In 1986, during my freshman year of high-school French class, "Madame" put Xeroxed copies of the Paris metro on each of our desks. After conjugating the verb etre, we spent the rest of the period learning how to navigate the Paris metro through its iconic map. Madame asked us the fastest way to travel from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame, and then on to Montmartre for a café crème. Once we got the hang of it, it was extremely easy to navigate various routes for wherever we wanted to go with our "Carte Orange." All we needed was a plane ticket and we'd be set!

So, imagine my glee when I spotted Mark Ovenden's newest map book, Paris Underground: The Maps, Stations, and Design of the Metro. Mark Ovenden is a map-geek extraordinaire. Paris Underground has more than 1,000 full-color maps, diagrams, and photographs of its famous subway system, and explains its evolution from the 1900 opening of the first line, to today's modern transit service. This book is utterly delightful and

As war loomed in the winter of 1939 in Great Britain, citizens endured "blackout" regulations, imposed by the government so German planes wouldn't spot targets. In an age without television or computers, it was terribly important to keep children quiet and occupied. "Blackout" books, filled with poems, cartoons, word puzzles, factoids, and other amusements, became sought-after collectibles. Reading this clever little book is like time traveling back to

Every day, my daughter and I walk by a house that has two pygmy goats hanging out in the front yard. How sweet and charming they are! Perhaps their owners read Living with Goats by Margaret Hathaway. This book is jammed full of useful, practical advice on raising goats on one acre or 20. Wily and smart, goats need attentive care. Inside this book, you'll find great tips on fencing, feeding, milking, breeding, and butchering, as well as delicious recipes that will help you use up all that goat

This breezy factoid of a book is sopped in wine history, folklore, and anecdotes. Kathleen Burk, the Oxford-educated daughter of a California grape farmer, entertains with her quick wit and humor. She explores why Elizabeth David ever suggested serving wine with omelets, what Napoleon's favorite wine was, and why we still "drink to forget." Oh, and the story of the Austrians who put diethylene glycol in wine is

This charming primer on home brewing resembles a child's colorful library book, but the information inside is strictly for grownups. John Parkes, a professional brewer from Devon, England, lays out the basics of beer history and home brewing 101 for enthusiastic novices. He also offers troubleshooting tips in case something doesn't go right. The color illustrations and simple instructions make this a pleasure to read (it feels more like a hardcover 'zine than a technical manual) and will get you itching to start on your first batch of home

It feels so good to get back to basics. Get some paper, fold and glue it, and you can create any number of amazing creatures. Julius Perdana's new book, Build Your Own Paper Robots, goes way beyond paper-crane origami. The CD with this book has hundreds of "mecha model designs" and templates to print out and assemble. Bold, colorful illustrations show you exactly how to build the robot designs, from beginner level to advanced. This book is like a Slinky: It's fun for all ages, for geeky girls or

Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British operative that promoted sabotage and subversion in enemy countries during World War II. The SOE only existed for six years, but it manufactured an enormous amount of disguised explosives, electronic surveillance equipment, and camouflage outfits like the "sniper suit," which resembles a leafy bush. The SOE catalog, secret for 50 years and now declassified, is a fascinating artifact. While some of the items might resemble props from a Monty Python sketch, it's humbling to know that this was deadly serious business at the