Reviewed by Ellis Underkoffler
Junior high, middle school, college teacher
Storms and the Earth is a hardbound edition in the Science of Weather series. This volume covers thunderstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes, wind, hailstorms, and flash floods. It contains excellent illustrations, maps and charts, a glossary, index, and activities for the student to perform in school or at home. Along with the other books in the series, this could be a valuable part of an elementary library.
Storms and the Earth uses current events to spark interest. For example, a section on El Niño illustrates how nature reacts to storms. It includes a general introduction to weather instruments used in collecting data. Another book in the series, Storms and People, presents the interrelationships between humans and the various types of weather phenomena, such as the problems farmers have with flooding. It gives advice as to what to do in case of road flooding and in thunderstorms, and provides information about storms at sea, air turbulence, and global warming. Drought and the Earth provides a little information on a great many weather conditions, and Drought and People covers how humans live and survive in extreme conditions.
All the books were written for the middle elementary reader in grades 3 to 6. The information is quite general, and some of it repeats itself from book to book. This may be annoying for adults, but at this age level provides reinforcement of concepts. The treatment of weather instrumentation is shallow, although perhaps this may be a topic for a future volume of the series. The treatment of vocabulary is inconsistent from book to book--sometimes important terms are printed in boldface and other times not. I would recommend these books for an elementary school library, where the entire series could be purchased in a durable format.
Review posted on 5/16/2001
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