Kid Konnection: National Geographic Science Books

Every Saturday, I host a feature called Kid Konnection -- a regular weekend feature about anything related to children's books. This week I'm going to share with you two fun and educational books from National Geographic Kids.

Summary: Time to exercise your noggin and have a blast doing it! Brain Games is a super fun, super educational compliation of challenges, myths, fun facts, science and games based on the hit National Geographic Channel's TV show of the same name! Kids will spend hours puzzling, laughing, sharing, and learning with this mindboggling book of brain power.

Every wonder what makes you YOU? It's all in the brain! So, fire up your neurons, hang on to your hippocamus, and join us on a rockin' ride through the twists and turns of the cerebral superhighway to discover how this amazing organ—that's about the size of a grapefruit and looks like a grey sponge—works! -- National Geographic

BRAIN GAMES: THE MIND-BLOWING SCIENCE OF YOUR AMAZING BRAIN by Jennifer Swanson is a great book based on the National Geographic Channel's television show called Brain Games. I am not familiar with this show, but based on how great the information in this book is, I just might have to check it out.

BRAIN GAMES is a book about... wait for it -- the power of the brain. It is chock full of interesting tidbits on the science of the brain. Through games, challenges, fun facts, and science, readers can learn all about this amazing organ that weighs only three pounds!

I loved BRAIN GAMES! There is no doubt that our brains are truly incredible and this book makes learning about brain functions fun. For example, there are chapters that teach explain how your brain turns your senses into thoughts, how your brain makes memories, how your brain deals with emotion, how your brain makes decisions, and more. There are colorful graphics, charts, and photographs that help to teach the concepts, and there are even a variety of games that help make the points.

BRAIN GAMES is a terrific way to learn about the brain. Highly recommended for budding scientists.

Summary: Grab a beaker, pick up your whisk, and get ready to cook up some solid science. Using food as our tools (or ingredients!) curious kids become saucy scientists that measure, weigh, combine, and craft their way through the kitchen. Discover dozens of thoroughly-tested, fun, edible experiments, sprinkled with helpful photos, diagrams, scientific facts, sub-experiments, and more. And the best news is when all the mad-science is done, you're invited to grab a spoon and take a bite—and share your results with friends and family. -- National Geographic

EDIBLE SCIENCE: EXPERIMENTS YOU CAN EAT by Jodi Wheeler-Toppen and Carol Tennant is another fun book that also teaches kids through experiments that you can eat. This book explains science terms through hands on experiments in the kitchen. What a great idea!

EDIBLE SCIENCE is divided into the following chapters: Mixing and Unmixing, Solids Liquids, and Yum!, It's a Gas, Actions and Reactions, and Biology in Your Kitchen. Within each chapter there are a variety of experiment/recipes that teach kids about common science principles including mixtures, molecules, ph balance, and reactions to name just a few.

I want to give you a few ideas of the types of experiments in this book because they are so darn creative. There is a recipe for banana bread that shows what happens when you mix an acid with a base. There is also a recipe for beef jerky that demonstrates osmosis or moving water out of food for those of you who don't remember jr. high science class. Finally, there are fun experiments that shows how to made odors, how to trick your senses, and how bacteria can actually help your food!

What I most appreciated about EDIBLE SCIENCE is what a great job is does in explaining science. There are step-by-step instructions for the recipes (including difficulty levels), but there are also sections which explain the "science scoop." So for every recipe (and there are over 40!), there is a brief explanation of the science behind it. I actually found these sections to be extremely interesting, and I'm not embarrassed to admit that I learned a thing or two!

Overall, I think EDIBLE SCIENCE is an amazing book for kids who are interested in science and/or cooking.

Thanks to Media Masters Publicity for providing review copies of these books.

If you'd like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children's books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, please leave a comment as well as a link below with your name/blog name and the title of the book! Feel free to grab the little button too!