Book review: Weather in 30 seconds
By Dr. Jen Green and Prof Adam Scaife,
Ivy Kids, £9.99, Publication date: 2015, 96 pages,
Recommended age range: 8-14
A lovely short book, with short, accurate explanations, including ideas for simple experiments and calculations to demonstrate atmospheric processes, plus some helpful illustrations. It was a great idea to put a glossary at the start of each section.
The book is divided into six sections: 1) Earth’s weather, 2) Climate and seasons, 3) All kinds of weather, 4) Extreme weather, 5) Predicting the weather and 6) Climate change. The book is highly reccommended, despite some slight reservations about a few statements in the climate change section.
This book could easily be used by KS3 geography teachers in the classroom.
Some comments from students at the lower end of the recommended age range: Annabel and Grace: “I really like this book because it is really colourful and creative. The illustrations are very good and quite funny. The best book ever!”
Sophie and Pippa “In this book you will learn everything from earth’s weather and predicting the weather to climate change. The book looks very interesting because every page is a different colour. There are lots of interesting facts in this book and I don’t know which of them is my favourite so I am going to choose all of them”
A review by Hannah, at the upper end of the recommended range: "'Weather in 30 seconds’ is exactly what its title suggests – a concise collection of weather related topics explained fully and clearly in this interesting, educational volume. The summaries at the end of each page help the reader quickly understand the topic on the page, and the three minute missions at the ends of some of the pages help you to further understand the science of it, in a fun way. There is a glossary at the start of each chapter which gives a simple, clear explanation of some of the harder words. Also, the fantastic illustrations contribute to the text, helping to give a clear picture. The actual worded content is also great- it is easy to understand and concise. The book successfully taught me about the covered topics; I understood them well. I’d definitely recommend it!
