Science Nature Books

For a book filled with fairly "dry facts", the language and art really held my son's attention. I know he comprehended because he pretended he was various animals in the following week. It is also pleasant on the eye and not so simple the grown-up will rush through to get away from it.

Many Christian parents struggle with finding science and nature books that are free of evolutionary propaganda.

This sound pictorial primer offers facts, activities and good quality illustrations for your child's early forays into the realm of natural science. Be sure to look at Usborne's other offerings; you will not be disappointed.

My four year old daughter loves this book. I use it as our homeschooling text for science and nature study, but it is not like a textbook at all. It is a compilation of seven separate titles in the Usborne First Nature series: Birds, Trees, Flowers, Butterflies and Moths, Wild Animals, Fishes, and Creepy Crawlies. Each chapter contains games like hunt the bumblebee in the Butterflies and Moths chapter, and watch the leaf bud open (on the upper right corner of each page) of the Trees chapter. My daughter is fascinated by the fabulous illustrations, such as the giant beetle in the Creepy Crawlies chapter, and the sharp teeth of the Dragon Fish in the Fishes chapter. The text is interspersed throughout the illustrations and is informative and entertaining. I am amazed at how much I learn each time I read part of this well-done book with my child. I highly recommend it!

Recently, modern astronomers came to a new consensus on how to view the solar system: the relatively tiny celestial body Pluto no longer qualifies as a planet, but is rather a "dwarf planet", and at least two more celestial bodies in our solar system (Ceres and Eris) deserve to be called "dwarf planets" as well. 11 Planets: A New View of the Solar System is an up-to-date look at the planets for inquisitive young minds, filled with fun facts about the eight planets, Pluto the dwarf planet, various planetary moons, Ceres and the asteroid belt, the Kuiper belt and Eris, and more. Illustrated with space photography as well as breathtaking artwork, 11 Planets is a simple yet fascinating look at the scientific wonders beyond Earth, highly recommended for children's library collections.

I bought this book for my daughter a few months ago when she turned 5, and she loves it. It has beautiful illustrations and only one page with info per planet (and sometimes another page for the planet's moons), so it's easy to read. The language is simple enough for a little kid to understand. It also talks about comets, Oort clouds and other solar systems. I like it so much that I've bought a few more for birthday presents.

If a third-grader were to ask you how many planets there are in our solar system, how would you answer? Back before August of 2006, it would be pretty simple -- nine: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Ceres, which is found between Mars and Jupiter, was once considered a planet, but in 1850 was reclassified as an asteroid.

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, I looked forward with excitement to the possibility that they would, some day, discover a tenth planet, way out there in the icy wastes beyond Pluto. In 2005, they announced just that -- the discovery of the body now known as Eris, just a tad bigger than Pluto, but three times farther away from the Sun.

And then, after lots of arguing back and forth, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in August of 2006 decided to lump Ceres, Pluto and Eris into a special new category of their own, the "dwarf planet". So now, you'd tell that third-grader that there are eight planets -- unless you include the dwarfs.

Basically, the scientists are still arguing about exactly what they mean by a "dwarf planet". Meanwhile, author David A. Aguilar, along with his publisher, National Geographic, made his own decision -- as shown in the newly released book "11 Planets: A New View of the Solar System". I first learned about it when National Geographic announced that a girl named Maryn Smith, of Montana, came up with a nifty new mnemonic for learning the 11 planets: "My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants". This appears at the very start of the new book.

Now, I'm a bit older than the target age group of ages 9 to 12, but enjoyed flipping through the pages. The book does an excellent job of giving the basic solar system layout in easily understood terms. First, there's the four terrestrial planets, then Ceres and the asteroid belt, then the four gas giants, and finally Pluto, Eris and the Kuiper Belt. And a little bit about the Oort Cloud, meteors, comets and planets around other suns. And our own Sun, of course.

Each section has a little discussion of the god, or goddess, the planet was named after (such as Ceres, the goddess of agriculture), along with nice drawings of the planet and its moons, if any. Included are some interesting facts, such as Jupiter's Giant Red Spot having existed for hundreds of years, or that Uranus is on its side, not more or less upright like the other planets. There are separate sections for Earth's moon, as well as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. In back is a handy glossary and a table showing how much children of various sizes would weigh on various planets -- at least, those with a solid surface.

To give your budding astronomer some idea of the relative sizes of the planets, there's a fun list of ingredients you can buy from the store (a grapefruit, an orange, peas, a cherry tomato, a grape, some sugar, baking soda and salt) and how you can lay them out -- if you don't mind walking 1000+ yards to get to where Eris would be on that scale.

The one thing that might prove controversial is the author's decision to actually number the dwarf planets in among the bigger ones. Thus, Ceres is the fifth planet, Pluto the tenth and Eris the eleventh. Aguilar skips the more technical aspects of the IAU's decision, such as the fact the dwarf planets "fail to clear their neighborhood". He prefers to simply classify the planets by their size: small, medium and large. Given the book's target audience, that's just as well. Personally, I like his approach.

As more dwarf planets are added to the list, as is very likely, it may become increasingly unwieldy. I doubt anyone but the most die-hard future astronomer would want to memorize fifteen or twenty planets, never mind several dozen. But eleven is a nice number, and will do for now.

Our world needs help in so many ways! This is a simple and beautiful way to spread the message. I give them every year for the holidays and Amazon.com is the only place I can count on to have them! Thank you!

Perfect trade book to read with the first unit in the science textbook each year.

This book was super! I was in Ms. Lehns 1st grade class, and I got to watch the procces of making this book. This book will teach you so much about being a scientist it will shock you!!!! I love this book and presintly own 4 copies! Also My friends and I are in this book. Definitly read this book if you have questions on what is a scientist. Later.

Children are natural scientists, as author and teacher Barbara Lehn makes clear in this lovely book. She describes the activities of a scientist in clear and concise words, which are accompanied by color photos of the kids in her classrom doing scientific experiments. The children make observations, pose questions, answer them with follow-up experiments, and most of all, have fun. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to encourage a child's sense of wonder and discovery.

This book is good for the person who wants to see what they can do for the environmental movement. In a non preachy way it informs the reader on different programs to use from transportation to home remodels. Some of these are know some not. I liked the idea of a co-op owned car to be used only when needed so you don't need to pay for insurance and parking in municipal areas where parking is hard to find or expensive.

I would say that we should all read this book. It would change the way we look at the individual and the environmental movement.

Good book, lots of info & websites and references for those of us who are lazy, but want to help the environment.

One of the few environment frienldy-go green books that I am actually hanging onto. Great resources listed for the consumer from clothing, to energy sources, to food. Compact, easy to read, and makes going green doable.

The average person needs to feel empowered to make change at their level. Let's face it, most people don't write letters to their politicians or participate in local debates about the environment (more people should do this). The reality is many of us are caught up in the race of raising children, paying bills, etc. I like how this book empowers the average citizen to make better choices. If we all think that our minor impact is unimportant, then we are taking a few steps back. Who cares if being green is trendy? I rather have it become trendy than unpopular like it was 35 years ago (reserved for only hippies). The important thing is that the trend begins a wave of change around the planet as to how we see the resources that are available to us and how we can best use them. Great Job Josh!

The cover and description of this book makes it sound like it details easy and painless ways to be more environmentally friendly, or possibly a book telling you how certain things you think are environmentally friendly really aren't. In reality, it is an advertisement for companies that bill themselves as "green." All it does is list companies in different categories that bill themselves as environmentally friendly. If you are interested enough in the environment to pick up this book, you probably already know about a lot of them. You can find everything this book tells you for free on the internet if you are interested in making a purchase in one of these categories. But even easier (and lazier) is to just not buy this stuff in the first place. Don't waste your money on this book- just think of the trees you'll save!

Mostly this is a very good book, which is amazing considering how much Christian tries to do. It is well worth reading, though hard to follow in places. Having given it five stars, let me offer a few warnings for potential readers:

Christian can be kind of fuzzy. For a book of history there are remarkably few dates, and I often found myself asking, "Just when did this take place?" I was also bothered by the way Christian didn't "define his terms." For example, a fair amount of the last part of the book talks about Europe becoming "commercial." But he never tells us just what he means by commercial, or how we can tell when one country is more commercial than another, or how we can tell whether a country has gotten a lot more commercial or just a little more commercial.

I was especially frustrated by a section near the end. He seems to say, "The modern world is capitalist. The modern world has tremendous poverty. Therefore, capitalism has caused tremendous poverty." This seems silly. Most people would agree that capitalism involves well-defined and well-protected property rights, and a large amount of freedom to engage in economic transactions without interference by a government. By this standard, much of the world isn't all that capitalist. Moreover, in general, the less "capitalist" the country, the poorer it is. Blaming capitalism for poverty seems like blaming medicine when people refuse to allow their children to get vaccinated and then the kids get sick. No doubt Christian means something different by capitalism--but since he doesn't say what, it is impossible to know how to agree or disagree.

A major theme of the book is that for most of the last two thousand years, the richest areas of the world were southwest Asia (mesopotamia and Persia), south Asia (India) and east Asia (China). As late as 1800, a "man from Mars" would have reported back to his home planet that India and China, not Europe, were where people lived best. The book then seems to say that a century later, China and India were poverty-stricken. Yet aside from a reference to the Opium Wars (and some reading between the lines about population increase), there is no explanation of how such a monumental change happened.

Sometimes Christian doesn't realize the power of simple arithmetic. If one farm family can produce enough food to feed one family, just about everyone has to be a farmer. If technology improves so that one farm family can feed two families, one half of the farm families will have to cease being farmers. If technology means one farm family can feed three, two thirds of the farm families have to get out of the ancestral business. Whether the process will be negative ("thrown off the land") or positive (peasants flee "the idiocy of rural life" for the increased stimulation and opportunity of urban areas) will depend on a lot of things, but the fact that it happens follows directly from the increased productivity. High agricultural productivity dooms a peasantry.

Intellectually stimulating, rapid-fire journey, the "powers of 10" movie specialized for history buffs. Some of the material I found superficial/generalized to be of substance, but the author acknowledges that can be the nature of Big History. An ambitious book which talks directly to ideas that most historians only philosophically discuss. A charge of inductive reasoning would not be far fetched, ie. cherry picking of facts to support prefigured models. Excellent overview of Big History and World History ideas and methods and themes. Annotated bibliographies at the end of each chapter, and large one at the end of the book, are very good for further exploration, most book recommendations are recent (1990s and early 2000s). Despite criticisms learned some new and important perspectives and recommend it highly.

The Maps of Time is a good concept; however, the view is slanted to a Marxist view of history. This becomes apparent as the book moves along although at first it isn't so clear.

The first clue that the book is slanted is the absence of religion in the discussion. The book is all science all the way in its descriptions of the universe and its origins. What mention there is of religion, especially Christian concepts, is negative.



As one moves through history the author makes statements that simply cannot be supported. For example, on page 174 the author states: "Studies of Homo habilis skulls show that their brains were not merely large than australopithecine brains; they were also organized differently. In particular, there are hints of the division of labor between left and right sides..." I hate to point out that a skull in and of itself isn't going to be able to tell a researcher how the brain was organized. And the author acknowledges this in the statement that there are "hints" of the division of labor. I am not trying to be especially nit picky but this is the kind of statement the author makes over and over. Things that cannot be shown are said to be absolute.

As the book moves into ancient societies the author argues that progress came through interconnection between societies. As trade grew so did progress to more complex things and more complex societies. He also divides the world into tribute taking and consensual societies. He argues that tribute taking states see war as their main concern. In essence, like Marx, he argues that states develop as exploitative institutions where those at the top use those at the bottom. Those at the bottom do all the work and those at the top enjoy the fruits of their labor. He also thinks that men began to lead society because they were less vital than women outside the home, so as society developed power structures outside the home men naturally began to run these.

I could go on, but the entire argument is flawed in so many ways it is hard to count them all. I would say that society developed as it did because of the need for protection. Even hunter gathers need protection from wild beasts and other tribes. Who is going to be doing the attacking? The biggest strongest men from the other tribe. Who will have to do the defending? The biggest strongest men from the tribe under attack. Those who go off to raid, or to protect, must be shown some honor from the group. If nothing else the men who fight will demand honor from the group, and eventually they will come to lead the group because protection is so vital. It may also be the leaders of the group are those with good ideas or whatever. It is not a given that exploiters came to lead society.

Why settle down and farm? Is it because you want to be exploited? No, it is because you can do more with your life. The crops and animals will support you without needing to tramp about all year. Specialization will naturally grow out of such settlements because some people will be better at certain tasks, and as they improve their work they will be paid (given grain etc) which will take the place of working in the fields. This will be especially true in areas such as metal working. Someone has to mine the metal ore (which requires staying in one place), smelt the ore, and then make the metal objects such as swords, spear points etc. From this alone a group of non-farming individuals will develop which will exist as specialist within the group. The author believes specialization developed because of interconnection with other groups (trade etc) and because the elites desired it. I would argue it is a natural process of staying in one place.

In my opinion society did not develop as set forth in the Maps of Time, and the book gives no other ideas as to how societies might have come about. The ONLY way it is described is a group of elitists pushing the "working class" into subjugation.

As the author argues the interconnectedness of societies as the key to progress he also argues that Europe was a geographic hub and that was critical to its progress. Europe isn't the geographic hub of anything. In fact it sits on the edge of a huge landmass (Euro-Asia) apart from anything that would cross it naturally. However, Europe became a hub of trade and learning because of the Renaissance, the age of discovery and the industrial revolution. The key was a change in mindset, and all else followed that key change. Capitalist societies etc came about because the minds in Europe had changed, not because the economy had somehow changed. The fact that other parts of the world had no Renaissance is the key to why Europe emerged triumphant from the dark ages and eventually ruled the world.

In essence, the author overlooks the importance of protection, war, religion, and thought processes in history. To his credit he includes economic factors (trade etc), the role of disease and the role of the types of government in directing history. Unfortunately he overstates the role of economic matters and government type in history. The author fails to effectively link the very long sections on the origins of the universe and our earth to history itself. More than half the book is taken up with physical history and pre-history, much of which is speculation. Little time is spent on ancient history, the foundations of democracy, the economic collapse of the middle ages in Europe, the development of the modern world, World Wars I and II etc. What good is knowing the physical history of the universe if it isn't tied to how we act and react in the modern world?

In the end, I reject the premise of the book that history can be explained by science and Karl Marx's economic philosophy.

AD2

David Christian had a great ambition with this book: to write the history of everything there has ever been. In other words, it describes not only human history but also natural history from the very first beginning. Of course, I had read this on the cover but I had not quite anticipated how elaborate and detailedly the author would describe the formation of the cosmos from the moment of the big bang. I had expected the book to go rather briefly through this part of history and to move on quickly to human history. But I was pleasantly surprised because this first part of the book turned out to be the most fascinating part, as far as I am concerned. The rest of the book is quite interesting too, I must add. The plan and ambition of this book are great, the way the author has worked them out, too. If you liked THE HUMAN WEB by JR McNeill and William H. McNeill, you may like MAPS OF TIME even more. If you admired A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME by Stephen Hawking, you may admire this book just as much.

The book is not always easy, but well worth reading. It debates the different theories about life, the Universe and everything, through zooming in. The first part is about the big bang en the formation of stars, than follows the geological processes that formed the earth, the evolution of live, humans and our history. It ends with the 20 th century and possible futures. What I liked most about this book, was that it did not present a clear story, but gave the facts, and the different theories (different stories) that might come with those facts.
It was for me the book at the center of my expending library, because it comes with a extensive bibliography from which I'm now selecting books about the different parts of the big everything to continue reading.
The best book I've read in years (and I read a lot of (non)fiction books, about a large variaty of subjects).

This book is wonderfully illustrated. Lynne Cherry's style is to put a large picture on
each page surrounded by smaller pictures all relating to the subject. In this book the
subject is the course of a river over time and the effects of humanity on its health.
The side pictures relate to the people and their lifestyle at the time. The text gives
relatively simple explanations of what is occurring on the page.

Ages 10+
Follows the life of a river from Native American time through present and details the story of human destruction of a river and the human renewal of the resource. Definitely a read for grades 5+ due to the "urgency" of environmental destruction*we don't want to scare the kids to help them appreciate the resource*

This book was given to me at age 12. I am now 17 and it is still my favorite. I will never outgrow the beautiful pictures, or the very important lesson it teaches. Every page is expertly laid out, with exquisite paintings depicting the river and the era being discussed. The message of environmental conservation and protection is inspiring. Lynne Cherry makes this vital part of our existence understandable to young children, and even adults, often the harder group to reach. I highly reccommend this book for anyone who wants their children to appreciate the world around them and learn that they can, and should, do their best to save it.

This is a beautiful book! The illustrations are breathtaking and it follows an almost "illuminated" type of text structure, similar to that found in "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. Each page is bordered by illustrations of items pertaining to the period in history that the page is depicting - the implements used by Native peoples, animals that live by the river, inventions of the Industrial Revolution, etc. There is much more to talk about on each page than just the environmental theme of the book. This book would fit well in units about Native people, progress/inventions, ecology, water habitats, etc. A must-have for classrooms, homes, and teachers

I used this book with my third grade class when they were studying the effects of water pollution on a large body of water. They had already studied Native Americans in second grade and this book just blended the two subjects together. The step by step portrayal of man's harm to the Nashua River helped my children learn about how they were harming the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Lynne Cherry is a fantastic author and presents two great subjects that are highly interesting to children. Any teacher that teaches either Native Americans or water pollution should include this book in their lessons!

If you are interested in learning and classifying weather phenomenon this book is for you. The focus of the book is on clouds and it does a great job differentiating the ten major cloud types and describing the sub-species and varieties. The full color photographic illustrations are outstanding. The author does not get into too much detail about the science behind the phenomena, but that is not the intention.

Such a statement is music to the ears of anyone who strives to encourage curiosity and promotes learning. We carry The Weather Identification Handbook with us in the car, identifying cloud formations, making our own weather predictions. We can grow with the book, now reading highlights, progressing into greater detail and increasing focus with age and ability. Isn't learning that sneaks up as fun, great?

This is an excellent book. It is generously illustrated, giving the user more types of cloud classification than most people will ever need to know. It then goes into storm development and other atmospheric conditions. The information is concisely organized and well presented. This is just an excellent book. Anyone with a casual interest in weather will find this book useful.

The book is printed on good quality stock and is full color throughout. I wouldn't be suprised if this is used as a meteorology textbook. It is reasonably priced so I encourage everyone who reads this review to strongly consider this book.

I am reluctant to criticize any book for being something other than what I expected it to be. I was looking for a 'basic meteorology' book. I wanted a better understanding of fronts, high- and low-pressure areas, wind patterns, world weather patterns, the influence of ocean currents, etc.

If you're looking for weather principles, this book is not for you. Unfortunately (for me), the book takes a taxonomic approach to weather. Approx. 2/3rds of the pages are dedicated to identifying and classifying various cloud formations and optical phenomena. If you read assiduously, you'll never mistake stratus for stratocumulus, cirrus for cirrocumulus, and, aha, there's some altostratus undulatus! And you'll learn of Corona, Glory, and Heiligenschein. Broad weather patterns and principles get short shrift, if they get any shrift at all. About page 178 (out of 192, incl. bibliography, credits, and index) you'll finally get into a discussion of air masses, fronts, depressions, etc.

Publishers are usually responsible for choosing the title. This book is mis-titled.

This serves as the text for my meteorology class. It is quite thorough and offers many useful graphics to help seal the various theories into my brain.