Science

Seymour Simon is well-known for his numerous photo-essay-type of picture books for elementary-aged students. Most of his books center around one specific well-defined topic and are illustrated with full-page photographs of the subject. This book is no exception. Sharks is an unpaginated, 32-page picture book, with approximately half of those pages containing full-color photographs of sharks.

The text begins by reassuring the young reader that shark attacks on humans are relatively uncommon and continues with a comparison between sharks and other types of fish. Several pages describe the characteristics of different kinds of sharks, leaving the reader with a sense of how varied these fish truly are. There are also two pages that describe the different types of shark reproduction; for my young non-readers, I skipped the paragraphs that described "external fertilization" and "internal fertilization". The book closes by reminding the children that sharks do not attack people very often, despite what they may have heard, and gives several suggestions for staying safe whilst swimming.

As usual for Seymour Simon's books, the photographs are of high quality and are truly the highlight of the book. Two of the photographs show the teeth and jaws of sharks up close, and my sensitive 5-year-old was horrified. Even so, my 3-year-old was fascinated. One photograph shows the birth of a lemon shark, which is born live as are human babies; my little readers didn't understand this and breezed right by it. The most popular picture of all was that of a hammerhead shark. The children were incredulous that any living creature could look so odd. Weeks later, they still talk about the hammerhead and are anxious to see one at an aquarium.

Although this is a meaty book for its age level and rather lengthy, my children were completely absorbed when I read this aloud to them.

' Stories in Stone presents the "World of Animal Fossils" and the story of the dinosaurs from the point of view of generally accepted scientific theories of today. Chapter 1 (A Rock Sandwich) covers introduces the idea of fossils, how they were formed, types of fossils, the scientific classification of animal species ("Why Dinosaur Names are Hard to Spell") and how scientists determine the age of fossils.

Chapter 2 (Buried at Sea) covers the oldest fossils that are believed to have come from ancient oceans (although they are found in very dry places today). This chapter also covers the theory that "about 180 million years ago, Earth had one huge continent ... surrounded by a large ocean".

Chapter 3 (Swimmers in the Sand) covers fossils of early fishes and sharks and ancient ocean mammals and reptiles.

Chapter 4 (The Terrible Lizards) covers the dinosaur world - including the first modern discoveries of dinosaur bones and the general scientific understanding of when and how the dinosaurs lived.

Chapter 5 (Furs and Feathers, Bones and Teeth) covers fossils of ancient birds, saber-toothed cats, mammoths and mastadons.

I've never had a great interest in fossils myself and always tended to skip over the relevant sections of animal books, but I have to admit that this book was well-written and quite interesting.

"Sunshine warms the earth. If the sun stopped shining, the earth would get colder and colder..." It is important for children to consider the importance of the sun in our lives. In Sunshine Makes the Seasons, children are introduced to the sun's role and in particular how the seasons change because of the earth's rotation around the sun and the tilt of the earth. In a fashion similar to The Moon Seems to Change, an experiment involving an orange stuck into a pencil (again a styrofoam ball and a chopstick or pencil will work just as well) helps to illustrate the various points that are explained. First the child uses a flashlight with the "axis" of the earth pointed straight up and down to show how the seasons would always be the same in that scenario. Then we are shown that by tilting the earth, the length of each day changes throughout the year. We also see how the North and South Pole are special cases where the midwinter can have several weeks of darkness and midsummer can have continuous light. We also see that the seasons change very little at the equator and that the Northern and Southern hemispheres have opposite seasons from each other. Again, this book covers substantial information in a very simple way and will be very useful and straightforward for early science lessons.

A very simple children's book designed to explain how electricity works and how it is harnessed to be used in everyday life. The thing my husband (the electrical engineer) liked about this book was that it, quite simply, doesn't have any flaws. It is simple, but substantive.