Bat and Bell; Chop and Change; Shock Tactics; Space Race

Well, he did it – Horribly – for History, and got away with it to prolonged applause – some even from this quarter. Can he do it for science? Here the Deary Palatable Products Plant (inc) has taken as its raw material Boring Science and, with Allen turning the handle, reprocessed it into ‘The Spark Files’ in which a family of laughable latter-day Leakeys (Haldane’s, not Louis) with more than a dash of Bastable in their make-up stumble explanatorily across selected scientific facts and mysteries.

Space Race tackles the roundness of the Earth (Gran Spark is a flat-earther) and its role in the solar system. Chop and Change deals with what we used to call ‘Properties of Matter’, Shock Tactics with elementary electrics. In these three there is little that was not rather more simply explained (and with better pictures) in my 1926 Arthur Mee Children’s Encyclopaedia and for me at least, Deary’s narrative genie labours in vain.

Bat and Bell however is much more of a contemporary entertainment dealing as it does with environmental protection, public need, private greed, council corruption and quality of life (which of course includes football). The result is a much happier read than the other three, and if these ‘Sparks’ are to ignite anything, then this particular pile of tinder is the one that will catch fire. But for the others, as another Barbara Allen once said: ‘Young man, I think you’re dying.’