“What keeps objects from floating out of your hand? What if your feet drifted away from the ground? What stops everything from rising up into space?

Gravity.

In this unusual, innovative, and beautiful book, Jason Chin introduces young readers to this fundamental force, taking a complex subject and making it understandable. The perfect book for all young scientists. ”

Publisher: Macmillan

See the publisher page for a link to teachers notes and a slideshow of pages from the book.

This fabulous book takes a scientific principle and  portrays it simply and accurately for the youngest reader. The author pairs objects that kids will instantly recognise in the illustrations, with simple  text (sometimes only one word per page). The illustrations and the words seem to amplify the meaning, going from objects around us to what happens in space and the gravitational pull of big objects.The scientific explanation of the theory of gravity is explained in the back pages “More about gravity” – but this is nicely done…still simple but with clear visual to help explain the concepts of attraction, mass and distance.

Image source: MacKidsBooks.com

Each time I read this it grows on me a little more. If you serve students in your library in the lower year levels who are interested in science and ask many  ‘what if’ and ‘why’ questions, then they deserve this book! Buy it – we should all have non-fiction picture books like this in our school library collections!

Interview with Jason Chin on Radio New Zealand Nine to Noon December 2014 (Podcast)

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