Fresh, lively, funny, and very, very informative.
Insects: the why, what, where, and how.
Nearly every page of this volume has a fabulous fact or story to relate. The tone is informatively jocular, with a waggishness sure to appeal to middle-grade readers but content sophisticated enough to intrigue and educate teens. In addition to relaying scientific information on fascinating insect behavior (fire beetles lay their eggs in the midst of forest fires) and physiology (a cockroach can live without its head for 168 hours), the author relays her own insect adventures. She gleefully embarks on an experiment to observe Madagascar hissing cockroaches—a bit of curiosity that gets out of hand—and shares her phobia of grasshoppers, thereby tacitly giving readers permission to be skeeved out by insects while still being interested in them. As entertaining as these stories are, scientific research is the foundation of this superb book. It explores insects’ vital role as pollinators, describes their potential as human food, hilariously relates their important role in decomposing dead things, and much more. The examination of the human-caused sixth extinction (as well as a bit about the previous five) and what that means for insects and people strikes a more somber note. Occasional sprinkles of appealing, anthropomorphic, black-and-white insect illustrations add fun visual interest and will encourage readers to look up photos to receive the full effect.
Fresh, lively, funny, and very, very informative. (reading list, works cited, index) (Nonfiction. 10-18)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-80103-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Wordplay and wry wit put extra fun into a trove of fundamental knowledge.
With an amped-up sense of wonder, the Science Guy surveys the natural universe.
Starting from first principles like the scientific method, Nye and his co-author marvel at the “Amazing Machine” that is the human body then go on to talk up animals, plants, evolution, physics and chemistry, the quantum realm, geophysics, and climate change. They next venture out into the solar system and beyond. Along with tallying select aspects and discoveries in each chapter, the authors gather up “Massively Important” central concepts, send shoutouts to underrecognized women scientists like oceanographer Marie Tharp, and slip in directions for homespun experiments and demonstrations. They also challenge readers to ponder still-unsolved scientific posers and intersperse rousing quotes from working scientists about how exciting and wide open their respective fields are. If a few of those fields, like the fungal kingdom, get short shrift (one spare paragraph notwithstanding), readers are urged often enough to go look things up for themselves to kindle a compensatory habit. Aside from posed photos of Nye and a few more of children (mostly presenting as White) doing science-y things, the full-color graphic and photographic images not only reflect the overall “get this!” tone but consistently enrich the flow of facts and reflections. “Our universe is a strange and surprising place,” Nye writes. “Stay curious.” Words to live by.
Wordplay and wry wit put extra fun into a trove of fundamental knowledge. (contributors, art credits, selected bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-15)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4676-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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