Everything Space (National Geographic Kids Everything) by Helaine Becker and Brendan Mullan
| Everything Space (National Geographic Kids Everything) by Helaine Becker and Brendan Mullan | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: This is certainly an eye-catching book to have on the school library shelves, but elsewhere it falls very much short of expectations. | |
| Buy? No | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 64 | Date: October 2015 |
| Publisher: National Geographic Kids | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9781426320743 | |
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It has to be said that too many children habitually want to be involved in the dangerous jobs – firefighter, sportsman, pilot, racing car driver, astronaut. Yes, looking up at the Milky Way or seeing planets and suns drift around in planetariums or movies seems particularly benign, but you have to bear in mind astronauts have to face severe G-force pressures when they take off, put themselves into the hands of thousands of scientists, engineers and so on to keep them safe, and face a lot when they do get out there. It seems it's just another job a child should be safely steered away from aspiring to. Luckily there is both so much we know about space, and so much we have yet to learn, that they can have a satisfying life in that world from a cosy room in an observatory. Books like this are designed to be the first step through those doors – a primer in all things from the biggest galactic clusters to the tiniest particles of dark matter.
It's such a pity then that this book failed to arouse much in me, beyond belief that it could have been done a lot better. Visually it's fine – no expense has been spared in cramming delightful images on all the pages, and it is arresting to flick through. That has a flipside, however, in that it really is quite bitty – the topics are spread over half a dozen paragraphs, all looking like box-outs, and sometimes you have no indication of which order things are to be read.
What's more, it's those very topics that come at you in a bitty manner, let alone how they're split up and presented. So much so we get told three times, quite far apart, that galaxies come in all shapes and sizes, and that's before we include the fourth telling from a caption line. The subjects are really all over the place – the solar system, our terrestrial observatories, galaxy clusters and the universe's expansion together for no reason, back to the galaxy, the life of stars, meteors and comets, and oh – different galaxies yet again. All are fine, they're wonderful to learn about at whatever age and there's no error in what is being told us here, but how can you get a hook on anything? There is no definition of scale for us to get a mental grip on anything, from the different planets up to the biggest things further out, lightyears are never defined, and relativity sort of blurts its way on to the page by accident.
If this book had some structure I would have been much more keen on mentioning it. So many other books get it right, whether they go down the dry route of discussing things in relation to the history of our scientists finding it, or working from Earth outwards. This is pretty, but it's pretty higgledy-piggledy. This could have been a good work, but it's a patchwork. Other books are more absorbing, have more educational text and aren't pieced together randomly. It'll be those that I turn to again.
I must still thank the publishers for my review copy.
The Edge of the Sky by Roberto Trotta shows how to put science across with the poetry of everyday language. We are, however, intent on giving Stars: A Family Guide to the Night Sky by Adam Ford to all passing youngsters to get them stargazing.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Everything Space (National Geographic Kids Everything) by Helaine Becker and Brendan Mullan at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Everything Space (National Geographic Kids Everything) by Helaine Becker and Brendan Mullan at Amazon.com.
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