Oxford First Book of Science

This should be a good one - good title, good publisher - buy it unseen, should be fine, you would think... Illustrations are meant to extend and enliven the work of the text, but here all they do is confine and deaden it. And the text, ranging as it does through the nature of scientific inquiry, life, materials and energy never gets much better than worthy. The Isotype Institute sparkled by comparison with this utterly mediocre production. If OUP are planning a 'Second Book' it will have to be better than this.