What I’m Reading #6 – Hawking
This is the last one of the “already read” portion of my segment. These will start being a lot more spread out as I actually get stuff read. Well, at least as fiction. I have a non-fic book I will recommend as well…
George’s Secret Key to the Universe by Lucy & Stephen Hawking [asa]1416954627[/asa]
I found this book by accident in the Children’s section of a Half-Price Books. I rummage through there every so often since I can and probably will make that leap in the nearish future — I never write overly “adult” situations anyway. Then I literally raved about it all weekend at ApolloCon.
George’s Secret Key to the Universe is a really cool action/adventure story based around science. It’s got a message about saving the planet that’s secondary. There’s a classic good guy – which in the right frame of mind can TOTALLY be mentally (and if there’s a movie – physically) cast as DR. WHO’s David Tennant. It’s brilliant.
But what’s also really cool about it are the insets – which occasionally detract from the flow of the story because you want to stop and read about the science. The insets include space photos, basic physics, etc. It includes some of Stephen Hawking’s current Black Hole theories, and just makes science FUN.
What I really loved about it is that the adult doing the explaining didn’t talk down to the main character kids, but did explain some majorly high level science on a 3rd grade level — which is what I’ve been looking for for a very long time. Stephen Hawking explained on a 3rd grade level.
It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s a learning experience. I highly recommend it to anyone with kids into science or are child-at-heart science geeks.