Microaliens

Children's Literature - Beverly Kobrin

Awe youngsters with the close close-ups of insects-in whole or in part-that only scanning electronic microscopes or their ilk make possible. Dr. Kunkel's micrographs of the animate and inanimate objects found in the air, water, yard, home, and on and inside people are impressive. They range from prickly-surfaced grains of pollen to somewhat mysterious ribbon-like structures in human cells unknown before the invention of the electron microscope and magnified here 52,326 times. Mr. Tomb's accompanying narrative and annotations are equally mesmerizing.

School Library Journal

Gr 4-8-A wonderful introduction to the microscopic world. After a brief history of the electron microscope, readers are treated to 134 stunning, black-and-white photographs of an array of items-from algae to pollen to taste buds-organized by their environments. Common organisms and things found in the air, the water, the yard, the home, and inside and outside the human body are described in the concise, fascinating text. Lionel Bender's Around the Home (Gloucester, 1991) uses a similar approach and includes microscopic views of nonliving items such as fabrics and electronic gadgets. Sarah Lovett's Extremely Weird Micro Monsters (John Muir, 1993) also takes a look at microscopic animals. Those two titles use full-color photographs of slides, and seem garish in comparison to the stark clarity of MicroAliens.-Cynthia M. Sturgis, Ledding Library, Milwaukee, OR