It's Elementary!: Investigating the Chemical World

Kelly L. Green is the co-editor of the Children’s Literature edition
of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

A chemistry book kids won’t be able to put down—now there’s a
concept. Authors Hayward and Bates have created just such a book in
It’s Elementary, which is actually an extension of the
“Do-It-Yourself Chemistry” program these University of British
Columbia professors designed and implemented for B.C. elementary
schools.

It’s Elementary is divided into eight chapters, each devoted to a
chemistry-related topic. These include elements found in the home,
water, bubbles and soap, food chemistry, and the human body. These
general topics are then broken down into subtopics such as magnet
metals, snow, and bones. Each subtopic includes an entertaining
definition and/or explanation, and one or more simple but powerfully
illustrative experiments. Children will learn how to calculate the area
of their skin, make a solar connector, and create a bubble sandwich
(among hundreds of other fascinating activities).

This book vividly demonstrates the authors’ contention that
“Chemistry is everything!” It is, in fact, much more than a
chemistry book. The topics and experiments link chemistry to astronomy,
agriculture, biology, and geology (among other disciplines). The authors
succeed not only in their avowed goal—to make chemistry real,
interesting, and accessible to children— but also in demonstrating
that scientific knowledge is an ever-expanding continuum of interrelated
experiences and bodies of information.

The book includes a blank periodic table for children to photocopy and
practise filling in, a list of Nobel Prize winners for chemistry, and a
list of when each chemical element was discovered. Highly recommended.