The Periodic Table: Elements with Style!
£2.56
So nearly perfect! - My 12 year old son picked this up and read in from front to back in preference to playing computer games - says it all, really! He adored it, but was slightly upset that not all elements were represented. I suggested it would have made it too large and not in the excellent pocket book category, but he is correct that it is not only the wierd and wonderful elements that are missing but some basic ones too. Any chance of a Periodic Table Book 2 to fill in some gaps?The subsequent Physics: Why Matter Matters is even better and we can t wait for the Biology one in Oct 2008. Hope the series keeps going!
Just the best Periodic Table EVER!!! - This is how Science is supposed to be - FUN!The book is accurate and covers everything a young mind would need to know about the elements and the little poster that comes with it (not shown here but is folded up in the back of the bok) is AMAZING!I have scoured the internet for a periodic table for my son, and they come in many shapes and sizes but htis one is ideal as the colourful cartoon characters each element is given are represented on the chart too and he is really keen to learn all about them!The book is written in the first person for each element and several interesting facts are given for each element as well as the important scientific data in easy to refer to bullet point form at the top of every page.The elements are grouped correctly and each group has its own title page with description of the main features of each group (i.e. what makes the group what it is and how to identify elements that belong to that group)the book is smaller than I thought but that just makes it even more accesible and the text is a good size, not too big, yet big enough to keep small eyes glued to the page.I am now on the hunt to see if Kingfisher have published any more science books in this style as I want them allAlso an ideal read for Adults trying to pick up Science again after many years ( like me)Super - really worth the money, and mine was delivered in 2 days.OK - so its not for chemistry A-level or above, but anything below that level is sure to love it and to behonest I am thrilled that the book has given my son of 9 a chance to access the periodic table and that I won t all be far too tedious for him when he gets into Chemistry more later - he ll be one up on his classmates.
Courtesy of Teens Read Too - Who said chemistry had to be boring? (I m sure no one has ever said this, but someone sure forgot to tell my science teacher!) Basher and Adrian Dingle have come together to create an entertaining and valuable resource for students with their version of the 111 elements.Whether you re studying chemistry in school right now or not, you re sure to get a kick out of the full-color illustrations inside the pages of this book. Plus, you might actually learn something, as each element is fully described in detail: the name, its symbol, its atomic number, its atomic weight, its color, its standard state, and its classification.The elements are also broken down into eleven separate categories, including the Alkali Metals, the Transition Elements, the Boron Elements, the Carbon Elements, the Nitrogen Elements, the Oxygen Elements, the Halogen Elements, the Noble Gases, the Lanthanides and Actinides, and the Transactinides.This is the perfect, easy-to-use reference guide for people of all ages, and the included poster can easily be used for an educating, stylish decorating tool. Who knew elements could be so interesting??Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka The Genius
Elements with Style indeed! - Although the previous reviewer is correct in saying that not all the elements were represented in this book - I think this is not the point of the book.....Some elements, as I m sure he is aware, have only been detected for millonths of a second - so writing much about them might, at this level, be a bit tough! I thought it was a wonderfully attractive book that breathed some new life into this subject - it was an excellent idea to give each of the elements a personality, and the text, on the whole, was witty and entertaining and accurate!
Short-changed - The concept behind this book is quite appealing: present cameo portraits of the elements of the periodic table as if they were personalities (Lead: Don t let my heavyweight status fool you---at heart I m a totally malleable softie...) accompanied by fun, manga-style cartoon characters. This kind of approach has the potential to appeal to older children.Where it falls down is that of the 111 elements shown on the folded 9.5 x 13.5 poster at the back of the book, only 54 (i.e. less than half) are actually written up in the book proper. Thus, for example, Cadmium, shown on the back cover, and Polonium---intriguingly shown on the front cover no less---are conspicuously absent. The Boron elements mysteriously stop after Aluminium, missing are Gallium, Indium and Thallium. The entirety of the Lanthanoids and Transactinides has been given short-shrift.These are disappointing omissions. The end product is frustratingly superficial, redundant (who cares about Lead---tell me something interesting about an element I may have never heard of e.g. Gallium, Europium, Astatine etc) and incomplete.