The Awesome Physics in Your Home - The Amazing Theatre of Physics - ★★★.¾

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AUTHOR: The Amazing Theatre of Physics
GENRE: Juvenile Nonfiction, Science.
PUBLICATION DATE: June 18, 2024
RATING: 3.75 stars.


A fully-illustrated nonfiction book for old middle-graders and teenagers about how we experience physics in our daily life. It covers the physics found in different rooms of the house such as the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen, outside in the garden and the garage, and even in the house structure such as the roof and the chimney.

This is not a beginners’ book, so it presumes a certain familiarity with basic concepts such as inertia, centre of equilibrium, friction, infrared colours, and so on. So it will be a good option for those who already know the fundamentals of theoretical physics but do not understand how frequently we encounter it every single day in everything we do, even in common tasks like walking and sitting, riding a bicycle to school, boiling water in a microwave, draining a bathtub, changing a channel with the remote, and drying clothes. Basically, this has excellent explanations for simple things, but not simple explanations.

I like that the book has information not just on how things work but also on how our choices are affected by physics, such as why wearing socks when we are cold helps or why we salt icy roads or why it is tough to loosen a nut and bolt with our fingers.

If only it had offered brief definition of basic physical concepts just as a ready reckoner, it would have helped children who might have forgotten or not studied those concepts. There is a glossary at the end, but this has more generic explanations rather than the definition and doesn’t cover all the terms. Having non-technical meanings in the glossary is a clever choice, but it can work only if some fundamental knowledge is already present.

The bright colourful illustrations complement the text excellently. In some cases, the text actually needs the illustration to get its meaning across because of how vaguely it’s written.

This book ought to click for children aged 10+, though the younger lot might still struggle with some of the explanations. I see it working better in a school library, though science nerds might love to have this at home as well.

Recommended to those interested in the topic.

My thanks to Albatros Media for providing the DRC of “The Awesome Physics in Your Home” via Edelweiss+. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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