I need some sage advice on children’s books about science and nature suitable for a four year old.
My son is asking me lots and lots of questions I can’t answer, or can only give the vaguest of explanations for. When I do know the answer I find it difficult to pitch the explanation at his level. You know the sort of thing: how do volcanoes erupt, how does thunder and lightening happen, questions about the workings of the human body and more.
I need help now! Before he cottons on to the fact that Mummy doesn’t really know “all the things”.
But none of us know “all the things”. Children aren’t fools, so they learn that pretty fast. However, thaty doesn’t mean they lose respect.
My suggestion is to take your boy to a bookshop or a library, and show him the science books written for about his level. Ask him which he finds more interesting and helpful. And don’t worry if it’s a year or two “too old” for him, since you can help him read the information.
Wow, that was quick! I suppose I should add that I am a British expat living in the Dominican Republic, where the choice of books in English is quite limited. I need recommendations for titles so that I can order them from the US or the UK.
I wasn’t totally serious there. When I say “I don’t know” he says: “But Mummy, you know all the things!” which always makes me laugh.
If you can get your hands on some “Charlie Brown’s big book(s) of Questions and Answers,” that’d do the trick. Or maybe some Charlie Brown encyclopedias. I am pretty sure these books are all out of print, but you can probably find used copies on Amazon. I looooved those books when I was a kid, for explaining hard-to-explain things in simple ways.
The New Way Things Work has been WhyKid’s favorite book since he was a little 'un. It’s not written for 4 year old, but WhyKid loved to look at the pictures and form his own interpretations, plus the explanations in the book helped *me * to understand and be able to explain things better. As he got older and was able to read it, it became a whole 'nother book for him to enjoy.
I was also going to suggest “New Way Things Work” by Macauley. I picked up the earlier version (“The Way Things Work”) for my cousin’s son when he was about 4 (and just as inquisitive as your son), and he was all over it. I think the pictures alone went a long way to at least satisfying some of my cousin’s curiosity. He didn’t understand them all, but then he’d start asking about just parts of the pictures - breaking down the overall whatever into smaller, more understandable parts.
I can’t say how long the book “lasted”, but I know when he was 4 to 6 or so, he’d go through it pretty regularly (it starts to get to the point where there are too many things the book doesn’t cover).
My 5 year old really likes the “Magic Schoolbus” series. Each book tells the story of a field trip Ms. Frizzle’s class takes, could be into a hurricane, or a beehive, or a rainbow or a white dwarf. There’s a huge number of them by now. They get across the scientific facts in an entertaining way. Since there is an element of fantasy (I mean how many classes have a school bus that can turn them into mollusks or raindrops?) the end of each book has a wrap up about what was not real.
I would’ve thought the format was too busy for my kid, but he’s loved them from the minute he got his hands on one. You can find them at amazon by entering “Magic Schoolbus” or possibly “Magic School Bus”. They’re published by Scholastic I think.
We’ve got three or four of them: the ones about dinosaurs, the water cycle, germs and asteroids. I had the same thought about the format, but my son loves them too. I’m going to look up the rest of the series.
When GrizzCub asks questions I can’t immediately answer, I say “let’s find out” and we go to the internet or library.
Sometimes, even if I do know the answer to a “why” question, we’ll still go look it up.
The book recommendations have been great, and the internet links were a bonus. I’ll definitely be trying them when the next tricky question comes up.
I always knew that science was never my strong point, but managed to go through life without feeling any disadvantages. It took a four year old to remind me that my knowledge of certain basics is sketchy to say the least.
Or you could take a look at the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. Calvin’s dad was put into those situations a lot, and came up with some really good explanations. At least, the explanations were good enough to get Calvin to go away satisfied.
A couple of suggestions for books that will get you up to speed so you don’t get outflanked by your curious kid:
Tim Ferris’s Coming of Age in the Milky Way and Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything are both surveys of the history of cosmology, i.e. how big the universe is, our place in it, how we figured it all out, that are entertainingly written for the non-scientific reader. Both will give you a solid grounding in the makeup of Everything without getting too technical about it (as is, I believe, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, which I thought was great but which I’ve heard turned out to be too dense and intimidating for a lot of people), and as a bonus Bryson’s book is occasionally pretty funny.
Stephen Jay Gould’s books of collected columns (e.g., Eight Little Piggies) are excellent for bouncing quickly through a bunch of biological subjects in short, easy-to-digest bursts. He was a smart guy who knew how to talk to nonscientists.
Also, I’d strongly suggest Carl Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World as a foundation for how to think about science — how it works, the pitfalls of nonrigorous thought, and so on.
I have a curious 4-yo too! Here is what I have found to be handy:
The Scholastic Encycolpedia of Space is the nicest space book we’ve found; it has all of space, and many books focus solely on the US space program and/or the solar system. This one has it all, and good pictures.
I couldn’t find a human body book that was nice and clear, with good pictures, for a 4-yo. I’m sure they exist, but the ones I saw tended to be overly confusing and busy. I lucked out by finding a used copy of the book I had growing up, called Joe Kaufman’s book about the human body (also titled How we grow). I highly recommend anything by this guy; he did a lot of books about how things work and so on. The text is clear, the illustrations are great (colored pencil) and very helpful. The sort of thing that will last you for several years. I also bought, used, his book on how machines work–sort of a junior edition of Way things work. DangerGirl loves them both and now likes to lecture Grandma on the function of the kidneys.
Have you seen DK Eyewitness books? They are way over the head of a 4-yo, but the pictures are wonderful. I check one out every so often for DangerGirl, and we enjoy looking through them, but they aren’t really good for answering her questions. They are far more detailed and complex than you need now, but great for later on, and actually good reading for anyone. DK does publish easier books for younger children, but they aren’t as ubiquitous.
The National Geographic animal encyclopedia is pretty good too. It doesn’t have every single animal, and for some reason does not explain how honey is made, but otherwise has been very handy for animal study. We also have the Kingfisher First book of animals, or whatever it’s called, but it’s not thorough enough.
