Reference Book of Water and Weather; Tudor Homes

These titles are demonstration big books, based on existing ones in smaller format. Quite difficult concepts are introduced in Reference Book of Water and Weather and many children, even in the 7-11 age group for whom it is intended, would need careful mediation from the teacher to achieve a complete understanding. There is a strong focus; we have a lot of general books on weather and it is useful to have one looking in depth at the relationship between water and weather. Diagrams are clear - I particularly like the one showing how a hailstone builds inlayers like an onion.

Illustrations are also a strong feature in Tudor Homes which uses cross sections to show how houses were constructed, carefully chosen photographs of existing Tudor houses and some interesting contemporary drawings and paintings which work well in this large format version. I think two further diagrams would have been helpful in setting a context for Tudor homes: first a diagram showing how houses changed and developed before and after the Tudor period and another one showing the main changes over the course of the Tudor period. The latter could have been in the form of a visual and verbal summary.

To help reinforce some of the different strategies we use in reading for information rather than reading fiction, children are invited to read the introduction and then to select chapters of special interest from the contents page. Perhaps this leads to a rather random ordering of topics - 'Chimneys and curfews', 'Big houses and glass windows', 'Town houses,' 'Kitchens' and so on. There is a strong chapter on 'Historical sources' and a very-interesting and detailed chapter on 'Kitchens'. The book is a good resource for modelling retrieval devices.