What Makes an Appealing and Readable Science Book?

To many people an "appealing" science book is a contradiction in terms, for science tends to have a spinachlike reputation. Apart from books about young animals there is little subject matter that one might describe as cuddly or heartwarming. Readers of science books are unlikely to feel the hair rise on the backs of their necks or to laugh or cry, except perhaps for highly personal reasons. They may well have to work hard to understand the content. And so science is often viewed as being somewhat unpalatable—but good for you; few would deny the importance of scientific literacy, particularly in others.

Yet, that is an adult view. Children are not born turned off by science, and if they grow up that way, it is because they have "caught" that attitude, along with the common cold and other scourges. Children are born curious, wanting and needing to understand the world around them, wanting to know why, how, and what: the very questions that scientists ask. Science has a natural appeal to children, to their powers of reasoning and questioning, their intuition and imagination. The business of writers and publishers of children's science books is to make that appeal apparent. There is more to it than producing a book that will engage and hold a child's interest, because most children's books are selected and paid for by adults. To reach the child one must first get by the adult—and then compete for time and attention, most notably against the pablum of television.

Strangely enough, however, it is television that has probably provided the biggest push toward making science books more appealing, at least to the eye. It has created a picture-oriented society, and the children of today have never known any other kind. In days gone by, most editors lavished their resources on picture books for the very young, while a typical science book was illustrated with simple line drawings that could most kindly be characterized as "clear." Today we are seeing a number of handsome science books that take advantage of advances in printing technology and are prompted by an editorial awareness of the picture-oriented reader and of the fact (a whole generation to the contrary notwithstanding) that appearances do count. Books today can and should be generously and well illustrated, with photographs and art that embody content and extend the text. Layout, use of white space, and readable type should also serve to draw the reader in, to make the book inviting. All books deserve good graphics, but science books perhaps have the greatest need to make a good first impression, to say, "Pick me up and look inside" or "Turn the page." Good illustrations can also be effectively used to draw readers (or the selectors of books) toward subjects that are important, but less popular than such all-time favorites as dinosaurs, whales, snakes, young animals, and volcanoes. The hand that might not otherwise reach for a book bearing on microbiology probably cannot resist turning pages that show what an electron microscope sees.

Still, illustrations can do only so much. Books are for reading, and once someone has been enticed into picking up a science book, the text begins to count heavily. A problem confronting both writer and reader in the 1980s is that science, even in the areas suitable for children, has advanced by quantum jumps in the last twenty years or so, and, advancing, has become appreciably harder than it used to be. More is known. New concepts abound. New complexities arise.

Within memory, natural scientists have moved from finding and classifying plants, animals, and protists, to anatomy and physiology, and to understanding the relationships that exist among living things and their environment. Today it does not suffice to produce, even for very young readers, a book that simply shows, names, and describes turtles. Every young reader is capable of grasping a bigger picture—how turtles make a living, how some can survive in cold water, who and what their enemies are, and what role turtles play in the natural world. Young children are perfectly...