"Teenager Alexa Coelho quizzed her neighbor, chemist Simon Field, with hundreds of perplexing questions, and now she had the answers." That is the introductory quote when used to describe this book, and it only gets better. The book is organized that the reader can find a question that he/she has and from there can navigate through the ginormous book to locate WHY and what the answer is. This book holds so many resources that will interest students to make them want to learn more and be creative!

Little Kid Reaction: I loaned this book to a teacher who thought it was an excellent way of introducing some of the basic ideas of chemistry to his students. His class loved what he did with the book.

Big Kid Reaction: I liked the straightforward approach and answers to each of the questions.

Pros: Parents and students will find this a useful tool to spark an interest in the study of science and chemistry. You’ll find some excellent questions here and you can challenge your child or class to come up with additional questions.

To read our full review, go to The Reading Tub®.

With questions by a curious teen and answers from a real-life chemist, Why is Milk White? & 200 Other Curious Chemistry Questions by Alexa Coelho and Simon Quellen Field is a great resource for inquiry-minded children and hopefully a nudge in the right direction for those who are on the fence about science. Appropriate for ages 8-9 and older, this book introduces kids to the building blocks of chemistry through questions in categories like "People and Animals", "Household Chemistry" and "Things That Stink". There are also molecular diagrams and some experiments to investigate certain topics further.

As parents with science degrees (zoology for me and physics/math for him), we're always injecting a bit of science into the kid's life and trying to instill in him a curiosity about how things work. Between the two of us, we have answers for how/why many things work but we don't always know which questions will trigger his interest and imagination. A book like this is fantastic in its variety as there should be something that appeals to almost every child. And since STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) jobs are on the rise and are some of the highest paying jobs out there, it can't hurt to see if your kid has an aptitude for biochemistry, materials science or another of the wide variety of science fields out there. And, of course, there's a good chance that parents/educators will learn something new from this book too! (I learned things I didn't know about moisturizers and hydrogen peroxide.)

http://webereading.com/2013/02/new-release-why-is-milk-white-200-other.html ( )