Category Archives: Age 9 to 14

Thyme Running Out – Panama Oxridge ****

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We don’t usually review fiction here, but occasionally a fiction book comes along that has enough useful science content that it fits here: this is such a book.

This book follows on from Justin Thyme, which had some excellent science content. Although there are slightly more doubts about the science in this volume, as will be made clear, it still presents science and technology in a sufficiently positive light that we feel it deserves a place here.

At the beginning of the book there is a certain amount of confusion if you have read its predecessor, as it jumps forward a little in time as far as the run of events ago (at the same time as featuring a story involving moving backwards in time), but soon the reader is plunged into an engaging and occasionally mindboggling storyline. This is very much the strength of these books – unlike any other fiction we’ve reviewed that contains some science, they work really well as a mystery story that pulls the reader along.

As well as bringing in one of my favourite bits of science (admittedly incidentally) in quantum entanglement, the storyline also plays with the opportunities for time paradoxes. I can’t say too much without providing a spoiler, but the big reveal part way through the book is genuinely surprising, and results in some very interesting thinking about the implications of time travel.

Where I have to take a step back on the science is the handling of time travel. In some ways, the book almost gets this back to front, making backward time travel easier than forward travel, where the reverse is actually true. We also get a time machine that materializes in time – this isn’t how real physics based time travel works – it always involves movement in space as well as through time, and a time machine would simply arrive, not appear. Finally, the book ignores the absolute fundamental that any time machine based on relativity cannot travel back in time further than the point in time where the machine was first constructed.

So the time travel aspect is the weakest, scientifically speaking (and the notes at the end of each chapter haven’t got the scientific bite of those in the previous volume). Don’t get me wrong – there is no problem with ignoring the realities of science in fiction, but it does reduce the book’s value as a way of getting science across. But it remains a dramatic and interesting storyline in which science and technology plays a major role – and for that reason is still highly recommended for the age group.

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Review by Brian Clegg

Justin Thyme – Panama Oxridge *****

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We don’t usually review fiction here, but occasionally a fiction book comes along that has enough useful science content that it fits here: this is such a book.

If there’s one thing that pulls the reader into a book, it’s a good mystery – and that’s exactly what happens with Justin Thyme. With the intriguing environment of Thyme Castle, really strong characters and a plot that thickens like the best gravy browning it’s a very enjoyable read. It can be a touch whimsical – a character named W. S. Gilbert who always sings opera and a food store called Fortean & Mayhem for instance – but this isn’t the end of the world.

I come to this book as a science writer. I’ve always felt that there is a great opportunity to write fiction, particularly for younger readers, that gets across some aspects of science, but it is hugely difficult to do. Often it results in poor fiction that is patronising and that labours to get the science message across. What I particularly liked about the Justin Thyme book that there is actually a lot of good science in it – but it never gets in the way of the action. Of course some of the science is a little unlikely, whether it’s the talking gorilla or the practicalities of time travel, but there is still plenty of good material, both in the end-of-chapter notes and in many of the things the characters discuss.

A real pleasure to read, and a book that works wonderfully well at showing that science and having fun aren’t mutually exclusive.

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Review by Brian Clegg

The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science – Sean Connolly ****

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I do a lot of talks about science in schools, and there’s nothing a young science enthusiast likes better than getting hands on, so Sean Connolly’s book offers a lot of promise, as it is subtitled ’50 experiments for daring young scientists.’ There is a stunning list of topics too: ‘Smashing atoms! Making gunpowder! Firing rockets! Using lasers! Raising the dead! G-forces, X-rays, black holes, DNA and much more!’ (Yes! There really are that many exclamation marks!) If Connolly really can deliver on this list, then he’s got my interest. The only danger with this kind of thing is the ‘X-ray specs’ effect. When I was young, American comics always had adverts for X-ray specs that let you see through people’s clothes and you just knew there were a lot of disappointed young customers out there.

Although the UK edition is technically a paperback, it’s a rather snazzy, wipe-clean version – ideal for when those messy experiments get out of hand. But how do the contents score? I think there are three tests that TBoPCS has to face up to. Are the experiments doable and fun? Is the science they are based on okay? And how did it live up to those extravagant promises on the cover?

A first observation is that there is a heck of a lot in this book. Connolly arranges it in 34 chapters, each of three sections: some historical context, a bit of science and one or more experiments around this area. The chapters run chronologically and are largely based on inventions from stone age tools to the Large Hadron Collider. The author gives us a surprising amount of historical context and science for a young person’s book. There’s a lot of content here.

When it comes to my tests, I’d say the experiments are indeed doable and mostly fun, though one or two (the elevator springs to mind) seem to involve an awful lot of work for not much result. Then there’s the science – mostly this is excellent, pitched at the right level and approachable but not trivial. I have a couple of small quibbles here. We are warned (in the ‘health and safety gone mad’ warnings about risk, which also include the wonderful ‘Slight risk of paper cut’) that a homemade battery has a ‘slight risk of static shock’, which sounds wrong when you think of the distinction between static and current electricity.

Then there’s the matter of how aeroplanes stay in the sky. We are given the old Bernoulli explanation of reduced pressure on the top of the wing as the air must move faster over the curved top to meet up with the air going across the flat bottom. Unfortunately, there is no reason why the air should feel an urge to catch up – there are Bernoulli pressure effects on aerofoils, but the main lift is due to a Newton’s third law effect where the air is pushed down and the wing is pushed up. The Bernoulli explanation is no longer the accepted one.

Finally, there is a weird comment that I have read several times and still can’t get to the bottom of. Connolly is writing about Einstein’s 1905 use of statistical methods to predict the random motion of atoms. He then says that this ability to apply statistical methods to the random motion of atoms… ‘led to his groundbreaking General Theory of Relativity published in 1916.’ I can’t see any connection between the two. Confused.

Finally we come to the third test – does it live up to the promise? I think the answer is sort-of. As you might expect, all the really dangerous sounding stuff promised doesn’t happen. The reader doesn’t end up doing experiments with X-rays or black holes, for example. Even the promise of making gunpowder (something I did do when the age of the readers of this book) comes down to dissolving iron wool in vinegar and observing a temperature increase (slow ‘burning’, hence considered a slowed-down version of gunpowder). I’ve nothing against keeping experiments to a safe level (my favourite is the last in the book, measuring the speed of light using marshmallows), but I don’t think you should make as explicit a promise as ‘making gunpowder’ when this just isn’t true.

Overall there is lots to like about this book. Connolly covers a whole lot of ground in both his potted histories and scientific explanations. The experiments are mostly fun and don’t require too much preparation. All in all, given its reasonable price, a bargain collection of bumper science fun.

Paperback (US is sort of ring-bound hardback):
 

Review by Brian Clegg

The Magic of Reality – Richard Dawkins *****

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A surprising number of scientists feel that Richard Dawkins does the public understanding of science real harm through his belligerent attacks on religion, which turn off a good half of his potential audience, but no one can doubt that he has a talent for getting science, particularly biology, across to a general readership. This is his first attempt at a children’s book (or rather a ‘family’ book as it is aimed at a wider readership) and it has much to praise.

The Magic of Reality is a solid feeling hardback, half way between an ordinary non-fiction book and a coffee table book in format. Every page is illustrated by Dave McKean, with a mix of full colour photographs and diagrams, and heavily stylised line drawings – these last were perhaps a little angular and abstract for the younger audience, but overall the illustration is a good balance of supporting the text without overwhelming the page.

The approach that Dawkins takes is an excellent one, picking up on ten key questions of science – ‘What is reality? Who was the first person? Why are there so many different kinds of animals? What are things made of? Why do we have night and day, winter and summer? What is the sun? What is a rainbow? When and how did everything begin? Are we alone? and What is an Earthquake?’ Each of these starts with ancient mythical explanations (where there are any) then goes on to detail the way that science answers the questions, using the starting point of the basic question to explore many different aspects of science that can be sensibly linked to it.

All this works superbly well. Although it seems slightly odd that biology comes before the more fundamental physics and cosmology chapters, the absolute gem of the book (as you might expect) is the way that Dawkins handles ‘Who was the first person?’ His use of a stack of photographs, stretching back into the past, one of each generation, is masterful, inventive and wonderfully eye-opening. I love the way he really pushes the paradox that every creature in every generation is the same species as the previous generation’s photograph – yet over the millions of years we can see a progression from fish-like creature to modern human. If ever there was a single bit of writing that could totally wipe out anyone’s objections to evolution it’s this chapter. I loved it. It will really challenge the readers to think and will open their eyes.

However, it’s important not to let the brilliance of much of the book hide a couple of significant flaws. In terms of science content, the huge disappointment is that Dawkins doesn’t mention much modern physics. Both quantum theory and relativity really don’t get any coverage. Particle physics only gets a passing reference with a wimp-out about the author not really understanding quarks. This isn’t good enough. Omitting quantum theory and relativity from physics is like missing evolution out of biology – it’s that significant an omission.

The other problem I have is with the final two chapters. Because there aren’t 10 questions, there are 12. The remaining two are ‘Why do bad things happen?’ and ‘What is a miracle.’ The first of these isn’t too bad as it handles chance, but both are primarily Dawkins returning to his bugbear of attacking religion. I don’t think this has a place in a science book, and it certainly shouldn’t be given two chapters. I think this will confuse and quite probably bore younger readers, as after all the other wonders, these two chapters are, frankly, lacking in scientific joy. There is also one very dubious part. Dawkins suggests that readers use a method of assessing miracles that boils down to ‘How do they stand up to common sense?’ The trouble with this approach is much of modern physics doesn’t fit with what common sense predicts. For that matter, most probability runs counter to common sense. As Dawkins himself points out, common sense expects that after a row of throwing heads, a coin is more likely to throw tails – but common sense gets it wrong. It seems highly spurious to use common sense as a scientific tool, when you’ve just shown it fails magnificently.

I still think this is a great book, and I suspect many young readers will simply not bother with the last couple of chapters. Covering all of science is tricky, but despite the failings in physics, the rest of the book is good enough to make this, without doubt, one of the best children’s science books of 2011.

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Review by Brian Clegg

How to Make a Universe with 92 Ingredients – Adrian Dingle ****

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This is a good example of Scholastic, best known for the excellent Horrible Science series, which is perhaps getting a little long in the tooth now, stretching their wings and coming up with something excellent. It’s a look at chemistry, the most neglected of the sciences in popular science writing (particularly for children). The name suggests it is going to be a trip through the periodic table, but instead it is more a set of applications and contexts for chemistry which pack in the fun facts.

The presentation style is classic large format, two pages per topic, with subjects ranging from the atmosphere and poisons, to fizzy drinks and petrol. Although occasionally they stretch chemistry well into physics (so, for example, there’s a spread on nuclear reactions), the subjects are largely chemistry-based and thus under-represented in other books. I personally find the kind of very brightly coloured pages used in these books a little eye-bending – sometimes the contrast with the text was a little lacking, making it not easy to read if you have even the slightest visual impairment – but there is no doubt the information is good and there’s plenty of fun trivia to keep you going.

Perhaps the only slight moan is that for an illustrated book it isn’t very illustrated. It takes the format of an illustrated book with the busy scattered-text pages, but the illustrations are often fairly basic graphics, not always up to the level you would expect in a book like this. They aren’t bad, but they aren’t stunning either.

However, that’s a minor point. There’s a lot to enjoy in this book which ought to give chemistry a nice little boost.

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Review by Brian Clegg

Stuff that Scares Your Pants Off – Glenn Murphy ***

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There’s nothing really wrong with this book – it’s a neat idea, basing a children’s popular science book around our fears – but for me it didn’t really work.

Part of it was that I felt the age targeting wasn’t quite right. It was packaged like a book for 10-year-olds, but the text was too long and too wordy for anything other than a secondary school audience. What was in there was mostly fine, with sections on scary wildlife, natural disasters, medical emergencies, unlikely accidents and more – yet it failed to have that real ‘grab you and excite you’ feeling.

There were a few specific issues too. It’s rather unfortunate timing that in the section on viruses we are reassured that there’s not much chance of the reader experiencing a pandemic… at exactly the time the World Health Organization announces one. After warning of the dangers of throwing around probabilities, Glenn Murphy does just that, sometimes not specifying (for instance) if the risk is per exposure or per lifetime. And, yes, he refers to the USS Enterprise’s first officer as Doctor Spock. That’s the childcare man.

Perhaps worst, the way it’s written, with a very knowing sense of humour, isn’t necessarily the right voice for a young audience. There are assumptions here I’m not sure would play through. For instance in the section on sharks we’re told ‘And above all – they play the cello as they eat you. Daaaaa-dum, daaaaa-dum, dum-dum-dum-dumm-daaa-dum.’ Possibly a bit dumb. I would imagine this Jaws reference would go over the head of many young readers, and there’s no attempt to explain the context. Even if they have heard the Jaws music (the movie dates back to the 1970s, remember, it’s ancient history), would they know it was played on a cello?

So there’s plenty of good material in here, and bits of it read quite well, but overall it doesn’t quite hit the spot.

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Review by Jo Reed


The Prometheus Project – Trapped – Douglas E. Richards ****

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These are rather different from our normal run of books. They’re fiction, but fiction which the author believes manages to get across good science at the same time as a story, almost by osmosis. It’s a difficult job to do, putting across science without becoming preachy – we’ll see how well Douglas Richards does.

The premise of the story, featuring brother and sister Ryan and Regan Resnick, is a little far fetched (parents seem to be involved in a secret project and possibly in trouble – I know what, let’s break into the top secret, high security base where they work and find out what’s going on) – but if you can suspend disbelief on that, it runs along nicely, with enough tension and drama to keep things going. The writing style is fairly old fashioned as modern children’s writing goes, but none the worse for that, and it’s much more likely to be a problem with trendy reviewers than with the actual readership.

Along the way we’ve got some puzzle solving, some science information snuck in, and perhaps most importantly an explanation of the scientific method. I felt a bit cheated by one of the puzzle solutions – it’s a passcode that has to be entered right first time. The clue is very much like a crossword clue ‘we are in the middle of nowhere.’ I got what it was meant to be, but I’m not at all convinced that the ‘middle’ of the word nowhere is between ‘no’ and ‘where.’

Much of the science is slipped in quite lightly, though I felt the employment of the scientific method was a bit heavy handed (effectively ‘we’ve got to get out of this’ ‘let’s apply the scientific method’ ‘what’s that, then?’ – I exaggerate a bit). What might have been useful was a little summary at the back that explains which bits are real science and which are fictional, as the plot does rely on a number of made-up bits as well as the ‘real’ science.

Overall it works well and proves a refreshing alternative to a straight popular science book for children. I hope to see more of this kind of thing.

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Also The Prometheus Project: Captured:  

Review by Brian Clegg

Body Science – James Cracknell *****

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This is a large format book even for Dorling Kindersley – at around 28×30 cm it’s quite a strain on the arms to hold (though at least it’s not too thick). As is usual with DK it is divided into two page spreads, each on different topic, though stylistically these look a little more consistent than they often do.

What I loved about this book was the way it isn’t just about the body. There are plenty of books on the body itself aimed at this market – instead, James Cracknell uses the body as a jumping off point for examining different aspects of science. Just to take two examples, there’s matter and elements. He looks at the different states of matter, using the body as an example – but also manages to slip plasma in, thanks to a play on words. When in comes to the elements, the right hand page considers the main elements in the body, and their relative proportions – the left hand side has a full table of the elements, plus boxes on the periodic table and groups of elements.

Like many books of this kind, it doesn’t really flow from page to page as a good read, it’s much more bitty and jumpy, but the sections on energy, control, movement and the future of the body give some interesting topic spaces. ‘Future’ starts rather gruesomely (and perhaps opportunistically) with CSI, before getting onto rather more dramatic scientific possibilities for modifying the body and medicine.

All in all this was a very pleasant surprise – a book that has more to it than meets the eye, and that should fascinate any young person with an interest in science, not just the biology fans.

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Review by Jo Reed

Wholly Irresponsible Exploits! – Sean Connolly ****

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Although this book isn’t explicitly aimed at children, and emphasizes the need for adult supervision, it’s hard not to classify it as a children’s book, because the point is to involve and impress children with fun experiments in which a little science is learned along the way. This is, lets face it, a noble aim, and anything that can make science fun has to be applauded.

Sean Connolly has a straightforward, personable style, bringing the reader in to his collection of experiments that are designed to be done with household materials. Like its predecessor, Wholly Irresponsible Experiments, these experiments rather overdo the risk factor, making that ‘irresponsible’ label a little ironic. About the most dangerous thing in here is using matches.

However, they seem to have learned the lesson of overdoing the Edwardian theme (presumably nicked from the likes of the Dangerous Book for Boys) – although the look is still used, the irrelevant illustrations of the predecessor have now been dropped, and on the whole where there is an illustration it’s about the experiment.

It’s still true, however, that these aren’t really wholly irresponsible exploits, they are at best slightly naughty experiments. If a wholly irresponsible experiment were a tiger, this would be a kitten. Each experiment ends with a “take care!” section explaining the risks, and about the most risky thing ever encountered is a match. Many effectively say “there is no risk.” Now this is highly understandable – no one wants to put children and their parents at risk, and no publisher or author wants a law suit because someone has blow themselves up, but I have to say compared to the experiments I did in my teens, these are incredibly responsible. I won’t go into details, but for any chemists, I’ll say “nitrogen tri-iodide – need we say more?” Our experiments tended to be more along the lines of “can we replace the solid fuel pellet in a toy rocket motor with home made black powder.” (Answer: yes, but only at serious risk of blowing off a digit.) Now that’s what I call irresponsible. [Don't try this at home.] [No, really.]

That said, though, there is plenty here from submarines to crystals and much more to keep you and your kids entertained and at the same time to learn a few little bits of science. So why not get out there and have a go. This would make an excellent gift book, either for enthusiastic parents who like doing things with their children, or for older kids.

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Review by Brian Clegg

The Cause of Mosquitoes’ Sorrow – Surendra Verma ****

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This is a book that has without doubt one of the best titles of any popular science book we’ve reviewed. There something wonderfully wistful and mysterious about the title, which certainly doesn’t give many clues away about what the book actually is – it’s a chronological wander through scientific breakthroughs, beginnings and blunders, giving a page per discovery, and bringing in both the obscure and the obvious.

It is one of those books that could equally well go in our children’s or adults’ section. It isn’t explicitly a children’s book, but the approach taken is often quite simplistic – the main Archimedes entry, for example (there is another on levers) gives us the apocryphal bath story and the account of his death, both worthy of a Horrid Science book (and both considered highly unlikely by historians of science). Another example is the first line of the page on Bell and the telephone. “Did you know the first words spoken on the telephone?” it asks. This sort of wording feels most comfortable in a children’s book.

Younger readers will appreciate the basics, while adult readers will probably get more out of some of the more obscure discoveries and blunders including Chladni’s 1794 theory that meteorites dropped out of the sky and Blondlot’s ‘discovery’ of the totally imaginary N-rays. No phlogiston, strangely, though.

There’s the occasional small accuracy hiccup – Einstein is misquoted on the subject of quantum mechanics and dice, and buckminsterfullerine is called buckminsterfullerness, but mostly it’s good stuff.

What would have made this a solidly 5 star book is if each page had a couple of other books as recommended further reading on the topic. This only seemed to happen once with a reference to Verma’s own Why Aren’t They Here – but as each of the pages in this book really acts as a taster for a particular bit of science, it would have been absolutely wonderful if each page then gave the reader a chance to dig deeper and really explore a topic that intrigued.

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Review by Brian Clegg