The Disappearing Spoon: Young Readers Edition by Sam Kean

The Disappearing Spoon: Young Readers Edition Reviews

• 
  Jim

  This is an informal trip through the Periodic Table of Elements. It doesn't go straight through, but wanders around with interesting back stories on how the elements were discovered, the scientists that discovered & predicted them, how the current chart came to be, & alternatives. I found it extremely interesting even though I knew some of it. I certainly didn't know all the material & the presentation was fantastic.
  
  As a kids book, this is great for a wide range of readers. I'd certainly recommend it to most adults unless you regularly works with the Periodic Table of Elements. I was interested in seeing if my grandson might enjoy it. He's only 7, so a little young yet, but even he would get a lot out of it. I certainly did. There is an 'adult' version of this book that's about 60 pages longer that is also highly rated. I haven't read it, but am quite satisfied that I got enough out of this one.
  
  As an audiobook, it worked for me, but I can visualize the chart & even many of the elements. If you're not as familiar with it, either have a chart at hand or get the print copy. It was very well narrated.
  
• 
  Jorge Zuluaga

  ¿Qué relación ha tenido usted con la tabla periódica? ¿es de los que tenía una copia siempre en un cuaderno para usarla en una clase o en un examen pero casi nunca entendió por qué era realmente tan importante? ¿o tal vez la usa como parte de su trabajo profesional pero se le volvió paisaje?. O puede que sea como yo que tenía una tabla periódica siempre en el bolsillo e incluso una de gran formato, fabricada a mano y pegada en un muro en mi habitación (¡hasta allá llego mi ñoñada!)
  
  Cualquiera que haya sido su relación con la tabla periódica, una relación de amor, odio o tedio, leer este libro le hará cambiar radicalmente su relación con ella. Lo hizo para mí por lo menos.
  
  Había leído este clásico de la divulgación científica hace unos años (el libro no tiene más de 10 años ¡y ya es todo un clásico!). Lo volví a leer ahora para preparar un curso que estoy dictando de Física y me volví a enamorar. ¡Que libro!
  
  No sé que es mejor en él.
  
  Si lo bien escrito. El libro es muy agradable de leer, tiene un balance casi perfecto entre lenguaje técnico y lenguaje para cualquier nivel.
  
  O lo entretenido. Se puede leer perfectamente de una sentada, sin aburrirse una pizca. Cuando crees que el tema se esta poniendo denso, hay un cambio de personajes (normalmente elementos químicos y las mujeres o los hombres que los descubrieron o estudiaron).
  
  O lo exhaustivo. A diferencia de otros libros clásicos que se han escrito en el tema (por ejemplo el de la Tabla Periódica de Primo Levi), el libro logra cubrir casi todos los rincones de la tabla, hablar de casi cada elemento, así sea solo de paso. Al terminar la tabla periódica se habrá convertido (si lo lees con la tabla en la mano) en un "territorio" conocido.
  
  O la organización. En lugar de hacer un recorrido predecible por la tabla, elemento por elemento; o uno más aburrido en orden cronológico por descubrimiento y descubridor o descubridora, el autor, el físico estaudinense Sam Kean, organiza de forma creativa su guía turística de la tabla.
  
  Con títulos sugestivos como "los Galápagos de la tabla periódica", "los elementos de la guerra", "el pasillo de los venenos", "como nos engañan los elementos", "elementos políticos", "elementos y dinero", el libro es un verdadero recorrido de ensueño por las curiosidades, las historias, los países, los personajes, la economía, la química y la física de los elementos de la tabla periódica.
  
  Si bien el libro fue escrito hace más de 10 años contiene temas de mucha actualidad científica. No se restringe a discutir o comentar temas exclusivamente históricos, eventos que ocurrieron hace décadas o siglos. También encontraran interesantes lecturas sobre superconductividad, condensados de Bose-Einstein, sonoluminiscencia, elementos super pesados, aceleradores de partículas, etc.
  
  No puedo imaginar cómo se podría escribir un mejor libro sobre la tabla periódica. No puedo imaginar a alguien que no disfrute leyendo la Cuchara Menguante. ¡Léanlo!
  
  Una nota final: hago esta reseña de la edición juvenil del libro que aparece en GoodReads (no quise crear una entrada nueva para la edición más larga de unas 400 páginas). Les recomiendo leer la edición original, no "resumida" del libro.
  
  Les dejo como complemento de esta reseña, un hilo de Twitter con curiosidades sacadas del libro:
  
  https://twitter.com/zuluagajorge/stat...
• 
  Hannah

  Science teachers everywhere should be reading this book and pulling out excerpts to read with their students. I learned a lot! I'm no expert, but I did think he underplayed Rosalind Franklin's role in the double helix findings.
• 
  Tina

  I am so thankful that I was given the young readers edition of this book. I found the science difficult to comprehend and hoped for more real world stories and applications. Diving into the period table is definitely fascinating and for all those who love experimenting with chemicals and discovering how one element relates to another, this is the book for you. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.
• 
  melhara

  I haven't read the adult version of this book but the Young Readers Edition was an engaging, easy-to-digest, and interesting audiobook about the history of the elements in the periodic table. I learned quite a bit but my main complaint is that the order of the information presented was all over the place and difficult to follow at times.
  
  Nevertheless, this book offered plenty of fun facts related to the elements including how they were discovered and named, their unique properties, and the role they played in history.
  
  *** #14 of
  my 2022 Popsugar Reading Challenge - A book with cutlery on the cover or in the title***
• 
  Kara Decarlo

  I wanted to like this more than I did. I had read partway through the adult version of the book. and this edition is not much different. I was hoping for more dynamic storytelling.
• 
  Heidi

  Science is often seen as completely factual and unbiased. The stories in this book make it clear that science is as full of human foibles and problems as any other field. While the discoveries shared in the book are fascinating and informative, it's the stories surrounding those discoveries that make the book so entertaining. If more science books were written like this one I think more young people would read them. The focus of the book is the periodic table of the elements, its creation, and the changes that have been made to it over the years. Thankfully there is a copy of the table included in the book for easy reference. The book is divided into five parts. The first part focuses on the creation of the table. The second part focuses on radioactivity and the creation of new elements from old ones. Part three focuses on mistakes and rivalries. Part four focuses on the economic, political, and artistic repercussions of elemental science. And the last part focuses on the relevance of the stories and discoveries of the past to modern science. There is enough science in the book that some background knowledge of chemistry is helpful, at least I found it so, even though it has been many years since I studied it. The combination of science and stories is a brilliant strategy that helps make the science easier to understand and makes it seem more relevant when the discoveries are put in context. Both the best and worst of human nature shine through in these stories. A great book for both young science lovers and science teachers.
• 
  Linh Chi

  Một cuốn sách khoa học kể bằng các câu chuyện siêu hay sau sapiens mà mình đọc. Tác giả tập trung vào khai thác các khía cạnh xung quanh các câu chuyện về bảng tuần hoàn như các nguyên tố đc phát hiện và các nhà khoa học liên quan, đến sự hình thành và phát triển của hạt nhân nguyên tử, những sai lầm trong nghiên cứu hóa học,... Và mở rộng ra về mặt ý nghĩa bảng tuần hoàn không chỉ có ý nghĩa về mặt khoa học mà nó ảnh hưởng vô cùng lớn đến các mặt của đời sống như nguồn gốc sự sống, hình thành bệnh dịch, vắc xin điều trị, sự nguy hiểm của nghiên cứu phóng xa và vụ khí hạt nhân dẫn đến các cuộc tranh chấp và chiến tranh trong lịch sử, sự ảnh hưởng của chúng đến tiền bạc, chính trị và nghệ thuật,... Nói chúng bảng tuần hoàn nguyên tố là một trong những phát minh tuyệt vời nhất trong lịch sử nhân loại. Nó giúp khai sáng nền văn minh, thúc đẩy sản xuất, phát triển kinh tế và cũng chính là một phần trong chính cơ thể của con người. Nếu sgk hóa ngày xưa thú vị như vậy thì chắc điểm hóa mình xưa cao hơn nhiều 😂😂😂. Thắc mắc sao sách này nc ngoài siêu hot, tác giả còn cẩn thận chia làm 2 bản dành cho độc giả lớn và độc giả trẻ. Mà ở vn chỉ dịch bản dành cho độc giả trẻ (bản này tác giả lược bớt khá nhiều kiến thức nặng phù hợp vs độc giả trẻ) mà lại ít ng biết đến quá. Anw cuốn này chắc chắn nằm trong favorite list của mình
• 
  Jessica

  Wow! I did not think I would enjoy a non-fiction book about the periodic table so much! I thoroughly enjoyed it and spent as much time as I could reading because I enjoyed this book so much.
  I liked how each element got its little place in the sun, and the stories were written in such a way you could read the book in short snippets without feeling like you weren't getting the story.
  Sam Kean also did a good job of making the stories weave together well and point out the scandals and controversies behind some of the elements in a way that wasn't dry or boring. It takes a good author to be able to take a huge topic and make it condensed enough for the reader to feel they really learned a lot through a fairly short book.
• 
  Beth

  A bit of a rambling look at chemistry, mostly based around the periodic table and how it was developed, modified, and used. But if something cool and chemical happens anyway, Kean is willing to go jump on it. Radioactive Boy Scout? Shifting states of tin contributing to Scott's doomed South Pole expedition? They are in here.
• 
  Krista Kimball

  Just like reading the original it was a rough start. But there is so much wonderful later on.
• 
  Kailee

  I'm done with school and school books.
• 
  Michaela Spence

  Read this book with my science class…a book full of funny stories, interesting facts and lots more about the periodic table! It was a fun addition to our chemistry unit!
• 
  Eva

  Really interesting background info on the discovers that led to our modern periodic table and the personalities that contributed. Good for advanced grade 6 reader.
• 
  Alexa Hamilton

  There were some truly interesting stories about how elements were discovered and the fights that happened between scientists. There is also coverage of a lot of different stories of damage people did to themselves with elements that were dangerous but we didn't have the knowledge. And there are more stories beyond that, but the flow didn't work here. Each chapter had a heading and the stories were related but they were written to flow and they didn't quite flow. Also, for this young reader's edition, I think they assumed far too much chemistry knowledge. I'm sure the adult version assumes as much, but likely has a different set of readers who do have that knowledge.
• 
  Christina Scott

  I enjoyed this book in audiobook form. There are a lot of details that I failed to retain because with nonfiction I generally need to see it or write it out to retain the information. That said, it was quite entertaining and I enjoyed walking through history and science together with the author who is clearly passionate about their marriage.
• 
  Megan

  I went into this expecting fun stories about science and elements, but what I got instead was a really disjointed history lesson with a small amount of good stories mixed in.
  
  Even reading the young reader edition (which I purchased by accident), I felt a bit lost by all the jumping around.
• 
  Kelly

  I was so excited to read this with my 12 year old daughter as preparation for her chemistry class, but this book really disappointed. It may just be the Young Readers edition, but it is full of awkward repetition, concepts that don’t connect or are glossed over, and a really inconsistent narrative voice. It didn’t thoroughly explain concepts on a middle grades level as some other excellent Young Readers editions have done.
  
  The stories are interesting, but the science is either too glossed-over or too complex for this book to do much to enhance scientific understanding of the elements. There are a few great succinct explanations, but the bulk of the book was lacking. There are bizarre word choices (e.g. saying an element would “murder” someone, when “kill” is clearly meant as elements don’t have intention, and this wasn’t even done as metaphor or hyperbole), random insertion of the first person, and sentences stated as fact that are the author’s opinion.
  
  The book is organized very loosely by themes, so the text jumps around through both time and the period table in a way that doesn’t create a cohesive history.
  
  Might be a fun read for a kid who just likes little factoids and is interested in the elements and some history.
  
  I’d love to see a more careful and conscientious revision done of the Young Readers edition, since the concept has so much potential.
• 
  LeeAnne

  "Chance favors only the prepared mind."
  
  This book is a treasure trove of mystery, scandal, greed, and failure. Reading about the history of the periodic table and many of the elements that are there was a great way to put all the pieces together and make connections that you can't make in science class. The stories of many of the scientists whose names grace the table are told; their history, failure, and successes explained.
  
  "He failed and failed and failed again, but failed a little more smartly each time."
  
  The author does skip around a bit from section to section because he is not writing in chronological order. It may be a bit difficult for a younger reader to keep track of information already explained, but for the most part middle school readers should be able to follow this Young Readers Edition.
  
  "Scientists can be cruel to new ideas."
  
  This book explains just how true that is.
• 
  Aud

  I think that this could have been organized better to help young readers understand the content. For example, and chapter that just sat you down, showed you the table, and labelled the different bits (metals, non-metals, transitional metals, etc.), would have been super useful. Most of the kids in the age range have very little experience with the periodic table, and this would have been useful. There is a table in the back, but it's not as thoroughly labelled as it could be - there should be more there.
  
  As for the actual stories - they were interesting. A tiny bit confusing how things jumped around in time (a timeline would have probably been useful, too), but entertaining.
  
  Not bad. Not sure who I would give it to, though. Obviously, a real science nerd, preferably someone who already knew a bit about the subject. But no names are coming to mind of who would really like this.