Force Makes Things Move (Let's-Read-and-Find-out Science Series)

There are forces at work whenever you throw a ball, run up the stairs, or push your big brotheroff the couch. Want to learn more about the forces around you? Read and find out!

Simple language and humorous illustrations show how forces make things move, prevent them from starting to move, and stop them from moving.

There are forces at work whenever you throw a ball, run up the stairs, or push your big brotheroff the couch. Want to learn more about the forces around you? Read and find out!

Kirkus Reviews

Simple language and appealing illustrations combine to elucidate the tricky concept of force in this solid Let's-Read-and-Find-Out offering. Bradley's narrative builds in complexity from the simple to the sophisticated to discuss reciprocal forces, friction and gravity-including a nicely comprehensible explanation of the gravitational force that exists between any two objects, not just the earth's. The reader takes the position of experimenter with a direct second-person address, using universally kid-friendly examples to illustrate Newtonian physics: "If you push a toy car, it pushes back against you with the exact same force. . . . If you push the toy car, your force makes the car start moving. So if the toy car is also pushing you, why don't you start moving? Because you are so much heavier than a toy car." Meisel's happily multicultural cartoon cast of kids puts toy cars, real cars and big brothers through a variety of scenarios, in a visually harmonious accompaniment to the text. A concluding spread introduces an activity that will allow kids to test differing amounts of friction-using toy cars, of course. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley is the author of Energy Makes Things Happen and Pop!, an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children, in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series. She has a degree in chemistry from Smith College and lives with her husband and two children in Bristol, Tennessee.