Chemicals in Action

From The Critics

This book deals with a wide range of chemicals and processes that would likely be first encountered in a physical science course. There is lots of interesting information here, some of which is new. Colorful and well organized, the book covers much of the same ground as would be expected in a textbook and makes the same mistake as is typical of a textbook: It covers too much too fast. One of the most serious difficulties students face in chemistry is understanding how microscopic models explain macroscopic properties. The book begins with a discussion of atomic theory, but it is a very superficial discussion that is not adequately revisited later, as would be needed to understand how atomic theory explains chemical phenomena. The authors seem not to have had a clear purpose for the book. If the purpose was to understand atomic theory, then atomic theory should have been presented in a much more substantive way. Alternatively, the authors could have decided to confine the book to a discussion of more easily observable chemical phenomena, leaving out the microscopic models entirely. As is, we get a superficial treatment of both the microscopic and the macroscopic. Controversial issues such as global warming are touched upon, but again, the coverage is superficial. History is oversimplified, and the significance of buckminsterfullerene blurring the boundaries between the microscopic and the macroscopic is missed. Boldfaced words appear throughout, and there is a glossary at the back, but all that this seems to do is highlight the idea that chemistry is largely about the acquisition of vocabulary. (from the Science Topics Series.) Acceptable, Grades 7-12. REVIEWER: Nancy W.Brickhouse (University of Delaware)