After reading Aliki's delightful Digging Up Dinosaurs, I was very interested to read more in the Let's Read and Find Out science book series for children. I have to admit, I am enjoying filling all of my nonfiction needs through the attractive and easy medium of children's literature. The next book I chose from this series, then, was another that I had on my shelf, this book about ears. I have not read much at all about the human ear, and thought this would be an interesting and highly different book for me to try.

The positive side of this book is that the text is simple, and though it deals with complex issues it presents them in a manner that a middle elementary child could understand. The bright illustrations further support the learning. Diagrams of the inner ear, the celia and the vestibule, the drum and the stirrup - and the many other small pieces that form our hearing organs - help to illuminate the scientific information that details how we pick up and interpret sounds. These pictures and text are broken up by illustrations of people and the sounds they may hear. The final part of the book exhorts children to take care of their ears because they won't grow new ones, and after the careful exploration of the complicated interactions involved in hearing, children will actually understand why it is so important to stay away from too loud noises.

The negative aspect of the book is that the writing is dry; clear and simple, but dry. The pictures are colorful and feature children, so will hold some extra interest there, but they aren't anything exceptional. In other words, while this book is cleanly written and very informative, it is missing in the fun department. If a child needs information, whether out of an intense curiosity about how our ears work (less likely), or out of the need to furnish facts for a school report (more likely), then they would find this book handy. Children probably won't read this book for any other reason, though. ( )

This book really lets kids know just how important your ears are. It shows a diagram that kids can see the parts of the ear. Do's and don'ts to have a life long in the hearing world. ( )

This book was very educational on the ear. At some points it was very boring and I think I would lose the students’ interest. Maybe showing a film on the ear would work better. ( )