Science Book Reviews :
science books for children and teens

          I'm only familiar with Physics for Every Kid (101 experiments, 242 pages, 5-page glossary) in this excellent series by Janice VanCleave (or Janice Van Cleave). While teaching 8th grade physical science and high school physics, I used it to extract ideas for student activities and classroom demonstrations.

          The students, because they could see it and do it, enjoyed experiment #45, a simple way to cut a sheet of paper with scissors to illustrate the fact that a screw is nothing more than an inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder. They also liked experiment #94, in which they used bottles partly filled with water to investigate how frequency and wavelength determine the pitch of sound.

          Please click on any title in the following list to display the price and shipping information. (Some titles have several editions -- if one is out of stock, try the other.)

          The Cartoon Guide to .... is a series of 8½ X 11 inch humorous paperbacks illustrated like the black & white comics of a newspaper, but they teach real science and do it accurately.

          I'm only familiar with The Cartoon Guide to Physics , by Larry Gonick and Art Huffman (212 pages). Part One is Mechanics and Part Two is Electricity and Magnetism. Newton, Faraday, and others, and their definitions and formulas, are presented in a humorous way, without any sacrifice of scientific accuracy. While teaching high school physics I had students form small groups, read and discuss a section of this book on Newton's Laws, and then explain their own misconceptions about inertia and forces. For the rest of the year they begged for more activities using "those comics."

          Here's a list of the titles in the series. Please click on any title in the following list to display the price.

700 Science Experiments for Everyone , Compiled by UNESCO

          700 Science Experiments for Everyone (paperback, 252 pages) is a compilation produced by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). It is appropriate for all ages.

          Demonstrate soil erosion, make a barometer, experience the muscles and bones as a system of levers, observe the development of flowers into fruit, discover static electricity with balloons, and 695 more. Step-by-step instructions. Illustrated with black and white sketches.

Conceptual Physics , by Paul G. Hewitt