Catastrophe!: Great Engineering Failure-And Success

by Fred Bortz

Describes engineering disasters, such as the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the space shuttle Challenger, and Three Mile Island, and explains what was learned from each incident

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1995

Reviews

[Shelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published by Scientific American back in 1995, Catastrophe!: Great Engineering Failure – And Success is a short, well-written book for older kids (maybe mid- to upper- middle school grades? At my advanced age, I don't really remember when I learned what). The hook is the "catastrophe" part; what kid doesn't love to hear about terrible disasters? Catastrophe! uses that natural morbid curiosity to teach engineering and physics principals, as well as the sound project management philosophy of considering and addressing every possible point of failure in creating anything on which lives depend.

While the writing, science, and examples are quite good, the fact that this came out in 1995 necessarily means that the tie-ins to more recent events are self-limiting. (For instance, while both the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear power plant incidents were included, only the Challenger space shuttle disaster was, as Columbia hadn't happened yet. And of course 9/11 hadn't yet either.) Also, while the line drawing illustrations were fine, the b&w photo reproduction was terrible.

My only other caveat would be to keep this away from particularly paranoid or fearful children; despite the fact that the book talks about how much has been learned and how safe most engineered creations really are, I suspect there are a few super-sensitive kids out there who would read it and then vow to never board a plane, cross a bridge, or live down-river from a dam ever again. Parent beware.

I believe this book was a part of a series; it doesn't look like Sci Am replaced it with anything, or has many books for kids at all anymore, which is too bad.