The New Way Things Work

I ordered this for my very curious 6 year old son, who thinks like an engineer already, but the whole family is enjoying it. It's a quality book with great information and illustrations that's fun to flip through or use for reference every time he asks how or why something works. It's target audience is probably much older (9 to adult?), but it's a great coffee table book and reference to have around for adults. Younger children will enjoy looking at the illustrations while a parent simplifies the explanations. Every day objects are fascinating to anyone who likes to see how things work or just has a curious nature. It has inspired an interest in science and invention and we're looking forward to taking things apart so he can see how they work with the help of this book. It would be a great gift for teachers as well!

Put these four things together--ingenuity, imagination, depictions, diagrams-- and you have a double ID toward understanding how things work. David Macaulay and Neil Ardley put together a magnificent volume for children and children at heart containing a way of understanding the laws of physics and mechanics. The first illustration even shows God busy creating the rotation of the earth. Then they go to the earth where wooly mammoths lived and pick up one to take us through the history of mechanics, machines, and the like. Dozens of movements in five sections: waves, electricity, automation, digital domain, and machines show us just how easy these things are to understand done in drawerings. Just as in child's play, there is no seeming order to the arrangement of items in the book. For example here are a few pages next to each other: vacuum cleaners, aqualungs or oxygen tanks, the toilet tank, the water meter, dishwasher, spray nozzle, fire extinguisher. Are you seeing an order? Yes, so am I. Flipping over a hundred pages, I find the jet engine, rocket engines, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, fallout, nuclear reactor. OK, a definite pattern. Another hundred pages show these topics: movie camera, movie projector, printing, paper making, printing plate, printing press, bookbinding. More discernible order and logical arrangement. One last check: scanner, bits and bytes, flash memory, magnetic storage, microchip, processor, software. We know where we are and recognize the order--a computer and its parts. This reviewer has a suggestion for the reader. Once you have this book in hand, take it home, take it out every night and read a comfortable number of pages. If you have a child, read one page, discuss it, put this one away and take out a night-night book to read. If this is just your book, read several pages. By the time you have finished the book, you will have added dozens of operating systems to the computer banks in your own brain, making your child and/or yourself an expert in the way things work.

I ordered the edition of this book as a textbook for my son who is teaching "early college Introduction to Engineering" to advanced high school students. As a Master Teacher retired, years ago I ordered the original THE WAY THINGS WORK and learned so very much about the history of engineering and the science of all motion, its principles and its advanced achievements-----covering all kinds of engineering achievements in Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, etc. I suggest that any parent who has a child who is interested in science or engineering of all kinds purchase this book and keep it on the coffee/cocktail/family room table. It is a real "motivator" for any child-----and inspires curiosity in all things made by man and all things of the universe. It is a book that all our guests of all ages, male and female, have noticed, picked up and become completely absorbed in it during their visits. It is a must for all families with children!!!!! It inspires one to learn.

We needed a birthday gift for a boy that is VERY into science - he's mostly into chemical science but always into learning new things. We figured this dose of physical science would be good for him too. We have the original book for ourselves and my 8 year old likes learning some of the simpler machines, but the descriptions are very detailed, too specific and vocabulary-heavy for him to enjoy on his own. But i'm hoping in a few years he'll like to get into it himself. It may be a bit of nostalga as well - I had this book growing up and loved reading it cover-to-cover.

I bought this book because I'd always see it at my mother-in-law's house and never seemed to be able to spend as much time with it as I'd like. I am a 34-year old mechanical engineer who is dazzled at how clearly and simply Macaulay explains and illustrates things I'm supposed to know so much about. At my level of knowledge it acts like a textbook, except that it is just a lot of fun to read. He doesn't overexplain, so each page is a bit like a puzzle with enough clues to figure out how things work that if you spend some time with it, you'll figure it out. So as a "way things work" professional, I find this a fun way to become better at my job. Having said that, it is written and illustrated in a way that anyone with a curiosity, young or old, will really enjoy it, regardless of their background.

My husband loves to read to my daughter every night but she is not very interested in the standard fairytale. They had already read through all the little essays in a book called "How Come?" about 5 times so I thought I'd get them this for Christmas. It's been a great find. Although the concepts are a bit advanced for my daughter (she's only 6) she loves the pictures and asks lots of questions so it makes for a great 'quality time' story as she and her Dad then spend a lot of time talking about the ideas. Strongly recommended for kids (and parents) who like this kind of informative reading.

This is one of my favourite books and should be read by every teenager. The illustrations are a delight and make the theories most enteresting and enjoyable.

Muy instructivo, ampliado con respecto al primero. Es más un libro para adultos que para niños, la verdad, porque los fundamentos son complicados y las explicaciones, aunque claras, requieren un cierto nivel. Pero muy entretenido.

My boys have thoroughly enjoyed pouring through this book. They are both the type of kids that want to see how things work and take stuff apart. Now my door knobs and clocks are being left alone as they read this book instead. My 10 yo was even taking it with him to keep reading everywhere we went. It complements a beginning physics course as well for homeschoolers.

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