Review: Quasars

Quasars by Ruth Owen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This is a nicely done series. Ruth Owen's writing is clear and interesting to read, especially for basic definitional writing. She tends to offer powerful descriptions and points of comparison that bring the basic information some livelihood. While these basics and most of the subheaders are available easily on the internet, the large clearly marked diagrams and compiling all the information into one place separate this from what I found on wikipedia. This is generally true of all books in this series (I will post the same review for the other two titles I read). The series hired Kevin Yates as an expert consultant from the National Space Centre, in Leicester UK.

This is the kind of noun-based topical series that libraries will buy to satisfy the need for noun-based topical reports kids research in school. If I were teaching about general topics in astronomy, I would want this series around. Unfortunately, they were only able to put out six titles, which is not a comprehensive view of this larger heading. I wonder if the editors picked specific topics where they found gaps in other series?

For the most part, the illustrations are consistent with the text and provide a corresponding view of what is being discussed. Sometimes the picture is not enough to illustrate what is being written. But the entire book seems to have been done with stock and open domain photography, so well done!

Interestingly, this Windmill Books title was manufactured entirely in the US. I don't remember when was the last time I saw a book that wasn't made in Guangdong, China.



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