George Stone

The third book in the series starts getting specific with facts. It is mainly about the earth: starting with how plants grow, then describing how the earth changes (through water, air, man), the connection between heat and electricity, how machines work, the motions of the earth, coming back to how plants are produced and ending with a short chapter on taking care of one's health. This chapter also introduces the community of people that keep you healthy and safe -- the doctor, dentist, fireman, nurse, garbage men, grocers, policemen, vets, plumbers, electricians.

The pluses in the book are: the sweet illustrations and clear diagrams. I also like the focus on the children - they ask questions to each other and search for answers through evidence without an adult prompting them. It is the beginning of learning the Scientific Method. There are plenty of suggestions for projects and further research that the students can do at home or in the classroom. Given that this book was reprinted in 1952, the projects are not particularly sophisticated, and yet they aren't boring and fairly easy for kids to do on their own.

There are some bloopers - such as stating that exposure to cold can cause one to catch a cold. Overall, in a logical progression, the Wonderworld of Science makes science very accessible and real to a 3rd grader without talking down to them or being too academic. It is all tied together by an underlying idea that this is the world we live in and we are in it together. It is entertaining without bombarding the child with extraneous information as many modern textbooks do.

Contains the following chapters: Foodmakers, The Changing Earth, Heat, Making Work Easier, Motions of the Earth, How Plants are Produced, Useful Plants, Guarding Your Health.… (meer)

Book two of the Wonderworld of Science textbooks continues with the two children, Alice and Jimmy, as they explore animals and the world we live in. The second volume uses more complex language, though still at the level of a first or second grader. Whereas the first volume concentrates on familiar environments (the backyard, the schoolroom, the park) and what a child may already know (types of food they eat, how to be healthy -- eating, washing, resting), this volume expands their world - the ocean, the earth as a planet, animals in other lands.

The chapters cover: Animals and their Food, Getting Ready for Winter, Water and its Forms, Magnets, The Earth, Animals and their Babies, Useful and Harmful Animals.

A lovely expansion of the chapters from the first volume.… (meer)

I found one of these books in a thrift store and love the simplicity of it. I eventually collected the first five in the series. There is something so innocent and optimistic about elementary school books from the forties and fifties, especially the science textbooks. Everything is so clean and orderly. Everything is classifiable, knowable, natural. I love the illustrations -- they remind me of the Dick and Jane books (could they be illustrated by the same artist?). Of course, they are now seen as retrograde, too simplistic and with no diversity at all (as white as white can be), but nevertheless I find them charming. Even this science text tells a story -- the reader follows the kids through the seasons. In contrast to modern elementary school textbooks, where the page is cluttered with photos, diagrams and text blocked off in a square outside of the "main" text, making the whole thing overstimulating and confusing, the reader of these textbooks can follow without distractions the point of each page, each picture, each chapter. I know modern textbooks need to be "interesting" to hold short attention spans, but more is not necessarily better for a very young reader.

The chapters cover: Where Plants and Animals Live, Water and Land, The Air Around Us, The Sky Above Us, The World in Spring, Where We Get our Food, Keeping Well and Safe.… (meer)