Science: Sorted! Space, Black Holes and Stuff

by Glenn Murphy

Space: Sorted! It's a BIG universe out there, and there's loads of stuff we don't know about it yet. But what we do know is pretty cool! This book has loads of information on all sorts of brilliant things like black holes, planets, solar flares and red dwarfs, with no boring bits!

Genres: Science

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an adult the child part of the conversation got boring very quickly.

[Amy Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for kids. Cute and funny.

[Saffron · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you would expect, this is stuffed full of fascinating facts on all manner of space-related topics. It is written in a similar comic tone to that popularised by Terry Deary in the ‘Horrible Histories’ series, but with fewer outright jokes. I like the way that despite the complexity of the subject matter, it isn’t patronising and it doesn’t over-simplify things. (My 6 year old nephew was reading this book, and I think he had a better grasp of the facts than I did.) I particularly enjoyed the first part of the book which describes the history of astronomy, where key thinkers and their theories are outlined clearly, supported by illustrations and diagrams. There are some very good explanations of why certain theories were put forward and how we came to our current understanding of the universe through the work of geniuses like Galileo, Newton and Einstein.

The subject of space is a very popular one, especially with boys, and I would recommend this for children in Year 2 and up. I think the reading age is probably around 8 or 9, but younger, confident readers would probably still enjoy it and find much to fire their imaginations. This could be used in class to support work on the solar system in Science (obviously) but could also be used in looking at non-fiction texts in literacy, seeing how information is presented in a fun way.

[Stgertrude · Rating 4 out of 5]

easy to read and simply explained + good humor.