How it All Works by Brian Clegg and Adam Dant is a fun and useful book, illustrating, quite literally, that we are part of science, not the other way around.

This isn't really a book meant for reading in a sitting or two. Not that it wouldn't be fun and easy to do, but if you want to think about all of the laws and phenomena then you need more time, even if you know many of the principles. So I would consider this more of a fun reference book.

I can think of quite a few good uses for it, aside from just being an interesting addition to any library. For those who simply want to better understand the world around them, these short explanations can serve as springboards into reading something, whether from a science book or online, that gives a bit more detail. This would make for an intriguing book for a middle schooler through high schooler who has an interest in science and wants to have an enjoyable way to better understand it. Parents of younger children who always ask the how question for everything can use this book in what I think would be a great way. They could pull out the book and look up whatever might apply to the question. The young child probably won't grasp the explanation very well, but this just serves as an opportunity for the parent to show that it is okay to not know since it can be looked up. Then look up, even if on Wikipedia, the concept and find a way to explain it better to the child. Both the parent and child will likely come away with new information and the child will see how easy and fun it is to learn about new ideas.

As you can probably guess, I would recommend this to almost everyone. No, it isn't in depth, it can't be. Yes, the explanations are very brief, but in this case that is a positive. About the only people I might not recommend it to are those parents who want to be able to just toss a book at their child and let the book do all the work while they do "adult" things. Though I think parenting is part of adulting if you've chosen to have children.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )