As it’s Saturday and I’m sat in the school car park, I thought I should expand my mind a little – every day’s a school day and all that…
It’s fair to say that I’ve not got a scientific brain and so a book on astrophysics is not what I would usually pick up, but I’ve found this absolutely fascinating and I put that all down to the author. I think one of the most difficult things to do is to take a complex subject and make it accessible to a middle grade audience, yet Neil deGrasse Tyson, with the help of Gregory Mone, has managed to do it with effortless ease. And not just made astrophysics understandable, but also fun and engaging. For example, describing the makeup of the Universe like the layers of a hot chocolate drink is inspired and so easy to remember. This is such an informative read: covering everything from Big Bang cosmology and relativity, to dark matter, dark energy and black holes, it’s a brilliant way to introduce readers to both astrophysics and the principles of scientific inquiry. I’ve learnt so much from it already, I’m feeling rather smug with myself!
