Changing State; Salt, Sand and Silver; Magnets and Circuits; Forces

These 'Science Quests' are sort of fun textbooks -hybrids between a sober programme of developing facts that a conventional author might provide and the wacky brand of common sense that Lazy Summer made their own in Cassell's 'Spaceship Earth' series. Sounds unpromising but in fact it works - and rather well.

Changing State deals with just that - melting, evaporation, solution, etc, leading to a look at atomic structure and, incidentally, including a best-yet explanation of an aerosol. Forces supplies a basic mechanics syllabus, Magnets ditto for matters electrical, and Salt, Sand and Silver is what I think used to be called Physical Chemistry - differences between materials attributable to their chemical makeup.

Taken together, these four provide either a stimulating introduction to some key principles of physics and chemistry or a useful refresher course before that all-important test, exam or pub quiz. The publishers say that 'pupils' follow a pathway of carefully constructed statements and questions - I couldn't put it better myself for these are preeminently books for pupils in the way that much contemporary non-fiction bends over backwards to try not to seem. But there's nothing wrong with that - the 'lively cartoon-style illustrations' (publishers again) make them quite fun.