Popular Science Children's Review - Wholly Irresponsible Experiments!

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Review - Wholly Irresponsible Experiments! - Sean Connolly

Although this book isn't explicitly aimed at children, and has a big sticker on the front saying "adult supervision needed", 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 (occasionally you will have to buy something in, like glycerine), and that have a tendency to be loud, messy or just silly, hence the title of the book. There are 65 experiments in all, enough to keep the most inquisitive (or chaotic) child of any age amused for a long time. It's not really the sort of book that is designed to be read through from cover to cover, though I happily did this for the review without suffering, but it's worth flicking through to highlight the experiments you really fancy - Connolly handily provides a list of them organized by time they take in the back of the book.

There were two things that could be better. For some reason, presumably to appeal to the spoof "boys own adventure" style gift book market that has been popular in the UK for a couple of years, the book has a very Edwardian feel to both its type (which is slightly irritating) and its illustrations, which often feature men with walrus moustaches and other stock images of the period. These don't really add anything to the content, and it means there's no room for diagrams, which would occasionally be beneficial - for example when Connolly is trying to describe how to make a three dimensional frame to fix a mirror in, that's very hard to visualize from his description alone. This style has been dropped for the US version, which is a good move.

The second slight point of issue - and they truly are slight - is that these aren't really wholly irresponsible experiments, 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 using static electricity, acid and bicarbonate to produce carbon dioxide ("look, Mum, I helped global warming"), and Boyles law with balloons, and CD hovercrafts, and eggs without shells 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.

Hardback.

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

* Our age range recommendation is an estimated guide, but individual readers outside the range could still enjoy the book!

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