With his excellent illustrator Tony De Saulles, Nick Arnold takes on the business of inventions. It’s worth saying up front that there isn’t a lot of science in this entry in the Horrible Science series, but that doesn’t stop it being a book that manages to be fun and informative.

The nice thing about the topic is that Arnold can flip between totally lunatic inventions, like a parachute that attaches to the head, and some of the real inventions that have changed the world. Because of the “horrible” theme, he also includes some truly evil inventions, including the guillotine and the electric chair. He mentions Edison’s involvement in the latter (but not that Edison first used his opponent’s system, to show how dangerous it was). As far as the guillotine is concerned, as in a number of other points in the book, he gives us an “I didn’t know that” moment when pointing out that Guillotine didn’t invent the device, just popularized it. (If popularized is the right word.) Edison also gets a bit on his life as an inventor – though Arnold misses a trick by not describing how Edison started as a boy, with his travelling newspaper office/lab in a railway carriage, which would make a great story. Mechanical inventions, perhaps because of relative time in use, get a much bigger splash than electrical and electronic. There’s probably about half the book given over to modes of transport, for instance. But most of the significant contributions in the electrical/electronic field do get a mention, and they’re much harder to explain in the snappy, quick fire manner of a book like this. It would be easy to list areas that should have been covered but aren’t – optical inventions, for instance – but there was no way everything was going to get in.

There are few real criticisms to make here. It is perhaps a little more obsessed with poo than most, it’s a bit dated on TV (only showing cathode ray tubes) and there’s one very odd little box, but apart from that it flows along energetically and effectively. The odd box is about Morse code. The readers are encouraged to use this to communicate secretly in class, but Arnold points out that some elderly teachers ‘learned Morse code back in the First World War’, so could overhear them. Assuming they joined up in the last year, and were 15 but lied about their age, this would make these teachers 104 at the time the book was published – even an education service struggling to find good staff probably doesn’t employ many 104-year-olds.

All in all, then, an enjoyable read with some fascinating facts. There isn’t a lot of science, which pushes it down from five stars, but it’s still well worth giving it a go.

Paperback:  

Review by Brian Clegg

There’s nothing like getting your hands on to get a good feeling for science, and that’s just what happens in Nick Arnold’s latest addition to the Horrible Science series. In Famously Foul Experiments, the young reader is encouraged to try out over 20 experiments to learn some more about physics, biology and a touch of cosmology (yes, experimental cosmology – tell that to the universities). As usual in this series, the book is well illustrated throughout (and in colour), though only the cover goes to Arnold’s usual collaborator Tony de Saulles, leaving the interior to Dave Smith. For the practically minded, the cover of the book has a nice, plastic, wipe-clean cover, though I suspect the pages will get a bit tatty – but then this isn’t the sort of book to treasure and keep pristine.

There’s quite a strong contrast with the companion Freaky Food Experiments. That book seemed a little light on the science, but here there’s a good strong dollup both of history of science and of practical stuff. Some of the topics are fairly predictable – light and magnetism, for example – but there’s even the chance of having a go at genetics, “breeding” paper rats with different characteristics, and as I’ve already mention, cosmology with a balloon standing in for (you guessed it) the universe.

This is a very good book, and it seems a shame to complain about the opposite of the problem with its companion. Food Experiments was really very thin on science. In this book, the science is too deep to cope with in the small amount of space allowed to each experiment, so you can end up more baffled than when you started. It also means that a good number of the experiments are a tad indirect, and so lack impact. Like its companion it’s also a touch thin, even for a children’s book. However, as well as demonstrating just how hard this kind of thing is to do, it does have a fair amount of practical benefit and will keep the right kind of reader amused for ages.

Paperback:  

Review by Jo Reed

Remember when parents used to cry “don’t play with your food!” – things are going to be very different if you dare to buy Freaky Food Experiments from those Horrible Science people. You’ll find that playing with food (and drink) is exactly what’s on the menu. (Aside – why isn’t Silly Science? The “horrible” was to go along with histories originally.) This slim book contains “over twenty eye-popping experiments to make your stomach squirm” according to the cover. As usual with Scholastic books the formula is simple but appealing. We get a practical experiment to do (on food and drink), a “you should find” section that gives the expected outcomes, and a “this is because section” that explains a touch of the science behind it.

With the opportunities to make alien dough monsters, famously foul cocktail, an alien egg and more, there’s a good range of options, while each section ends in a quiz with multiple choice or match the question/answer combinations, mostly about bizarre facts and strange happenings around food (very little science with some of these). As usual the book is well illustrated throughout (and in colour), though only the cover goes to Arnold’s usual collaborator Tony de Saulles, leaving the interior to Dave Smith. For the practically minded, the cover of the book has a nice, plastic, wipe-clean cover, though I suspect the pages will get a bit tatty – but then this isn’t the sort of book to treasure and keep pristine.

The science is spread a little thinly for my taste – there could have been a bit more, and sometimes the explanations leave a little to be desired. (For example, when explaining why nettle soup doesn’t sting you we are told “heating probably breaks up [the] chemicals” – a bit vague, this.) For that matter, the book itself is a little on the thin side, too. But there’s no doubting that this is a fun book that should result in a little learning, a lot of entertainment and a whole kitchenful of mess – no doubt for mum or dad to clean up.

Paperback:  

Review by Jo Reed

Scholastic’s Horrible Science series, mostly written by Nick Arnold and illustrated by Tony de Saulles, has been a remarkable success. The great thing about these books are that they appeal as much to individual children as they do to schools as educational books. They are as likely to be bought as a birthday present as for a science lesson. That’s because they are one of the few examples of popular science for children (as opposed to textbooks, reference books or science picture books).

To celebrate the series, Scholastic has brought out this “science in one go” book – and it’s a great attempt to cram a quick overview of everything you should know about science into 96 bulging pages. Perhaps the biggest triumph, given it is such an overview, is that the book remains very enjoyable and readable. There’s little sense of rushing over things, just because it is condensed.

As usual with the Horrible Science books it’s a crazy mix of cartoons and comic-style humour with facts and adventures in science. However, there is one break from tradition. Where one of the strengths of the Horrible Science books to date has been that they are ordinary paperbacks (hence both affordable and manageable), this one-off special has taken a leaf from Dorling Kindersley’s “how to make a book” manual. It’s large format, hardback and often adopts a DK-style, two pages to a topic approach. But a quick glance at it would inform anyone that this isn’t one DK’s lushly illustrated volumes, but the more anarchic (and dare we say fun) Horrible Science equivalent. In fact the weakest sections are where there are full page illustrations with a key – they lack the readability of the usual Horrible Science production.

While we’re in mildly negative mode, let’s get a few moans out of the way. We were a little surprised to learn that matter is like “frozen, cooled down energy” (so what temperature is energy, then?) And sad to see that de Saulles still hasn’t got over his solar system model of the atom. There was a touch of inconsistency – we hear that we’re all the same age because our matter dates back to the start of the universe, then we are told the oldest rock is 4.3 billion years old. So people are a lot older than rocks, then? It was a shame that Arnold misses out the really amazing thing about mitochondria. (No, we’re not going to tell you.) And then there’s the character Tinpot, a robot who lives to the end of the universe, slowly rusting away and being depressed, which might to older readers seem a touch reminiscent of Douglas Adams’ Marvin, who at one point sits around to the end of the universe, slowing rusting away and being depressed…

… still these are minor gripes indeed. It’s a great book as an introduction to all of science (okay, all except things like relativity and quantum theory and…), it keeps the interest and oozes with fun and horrid facts. The structure of starting with very small and working up very large works well. And young readers love it. What more could you ask?

Hardback:  

Review by Brian Clegg

A particularly fun entry in the Horrible Science range as it’s a pack containing both one of the books and a set of book-sized cards, each describing an experiment to try out in your own home.

The book is a good entry in the series, describing the importance of experiment. I was a bit disappointed that the quick historical section up front contains unnecessary acres on what Arnold claims is the world’s first experiment in Egyptian times, but then doesn’t mention either Roger Bacon, the amazing 13th century friar who wrote on the importance of experiment, nor his unrelated namesake Francis Bacon, who clearly defined the experimental method. But these are minor moans. There’s fun stuff on medical experiments, followed by the various sciences, combining a nice mix of relating odd and fascinating real experiments and giving the readers their own experiments to do. Tony de Saulles illustrations, in the usual mix of picture and comic strip, work well to support the flow.

Then there are the cards. Each describes an experiment, the possible outcomes and a touch of painless learning. Having the experiments on cards is an excellent idea, as books (especially tight-bound paperbacks) don’t work well as an experimental guide. There’s everything from growing your own fungus (I think the safety warning could have been a little stronger) to turning a bucket of water upside down without spilling it (ulp).

Perhaps the only other slight moan is that there doesn’t seem to be any real link between the book and the cards – it would have been nice if they could have been more integrated.

Paperback:  

Review by Brian Clegg