Science Books, Science Education, and the Religion of Science Billie Nodelman (bio) I am a parent—not a scientist, not a teacher, not even a critic. So why am I writing about children's science books? Well, like most parents, I have an interest in seeing that my children learn about science. We all know that Science is important. Hasn't it benefitted mankind, defeated small pox, developed plastics, given us more and better food to eat? Even if I can't remember now the organic chemistry that I laboriously learned a few years ago, I want my children to learn science. Their experiences in doing so led to my interest in science books, and to this article. Like most parents, I thought than when my oldest son went to school he would learn there the things that I could not teach him at home—I don't pretend to know what or how to teach math to a six year old. I expected that he would get the important stuff: reading, writing, mathematics, geography, a little history—and science. And I also expected that my own involvement in his learning of these things would be unnecessary. When it came to school activities and programs, I thought that my part would be restricted to acting as audience for the school play or concert, or as shepherd on those days that the class went to the zoo or the planetarium, or as supervisor in charge of seeing that homework is complete on time. I was wrong—especially about science. When my son was in grade four, he came home all excited because there was going to be a science fair in his school and he had to have a project. He showed me a legal length gestetnered sheet explaining how large the back board had to be and what it should be made of, some other general instructions, and when the fair was to take place. He had already made up his mind that he was going to "do" electricity. Others in his class still with stars in their eyes from Star Wars were going to "do" space, another was going to "do" lasers. Just how they were going to "do" these things was highly unclear. What was clear was that the school had dumped this project into my lap with the understanding that I had to do it. My husband washed his hands of the whole business as soon as he heard about it. Our first problem in building the project was to find a topic. Electricity is not a topic; it is an entire field of study. Josh had been taught that he had to start with a question and state a hypothesis. Well, quite simply, he didn't have a question. What he wanted to do was make sparks or something glitzy. He had too many visions of the special effects in movies dancing around in his head, and this made it difficult to come down to earth and work out something that he could do with his limited experience and limited knowledge. There was practically no help coming from the school. Eventually, we worked something out with batteries and a light globe and copper wire and set the thing up. It didn't work, but by then I didn't care. I thought that he had learned something from the struggle, but I was exasperated and glad to be rid of the whole thing. And needless to say, he didn't win. He wasn't the only one, of course. There can be only one winner for each category and grade. It was embarrasing to walk through that gym and see some of the things that children had been forced to display. Remember that this is a compulsory activity. The children had to enter. One child simply displayed some magnets, scribbled what they were in a line or two, and that was all. Then there were the problems of logic. One student blithely equated the respiration of plants with the respiration of people, stating that what was good for plants was good for us. Now that may be true, but it isn't as simple as that...