The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry: A Stanford Professor’s Humorous Graphic Guide to College-Level Science (Cartoon Guide Series, 10)

Larry Gonick's 'Cartoon Guides to ...' the sciences are a godsend. So many science texts are dull dull dull -- just assertions and equations. This book should be given to every child interested in, or forced to study, chemistry.

Really informative and useful for the casual reader who wants a basic/working understanding of organic chemistry. It's non pretentious and knows its market.

This was bought as a fun present for my daughter who has a chemistry degree and she loved it it but also good for younger children to introduce them to chemistry.

A fantastic way to learn about the world of chemistry. Who would have guessed it could be so much fun :-)

I love it

Good

very good cartoon book

Very surface level explanations. Probably should have seen this coming since it's a cartoon guide to what is arguably the hardest science. I got this because my grandmother was trying to help me survive A-Level Chemistry and recommended it, but it did not work miracles and therefore I still ended up dropping it. Still got into Oxford though so it's alright.

CITATION: Gonick, L. & Criddle, C. (2005). The cartoon guide to chemistry. New York: HarperCollins. Reviewer: Dr W. P. Palmer Can students learn chemistry through cartoons? The answer may well be ‘only with extreme difficulty’. Nonetheless, this cartoon guide could be extremely helpful promoting student learning in some areas of chemistry. The way in which students learn chemistry is very much dependent on the student’s learning style and some students will reject the concept of a cartoon guide to chemistry out of hand. However, this book could prove to be a valuable resource for most Year 11/12 students studying chemistry, though there are difficulties. Interestingly it starts with some of chemistry’s history where there are some minor errors by the authors. It was Cavendish, rather than Priestley (p. 9), who first prepared and named hydrogen and also Cavendish who discovered that hydrogen burnt to form water. Robert Boyle had prepared hydrogen much earlier, but had not identified its properties. Reflecting on the early part of the text, it is easy to see how the cartoonist’s desire to use humour to help students remember and understand chemistry could equally be responsible for student chemical misconceptions. ‘Chemical bonding’ is likened to human love and affection, for example, ‘No wonder the subject is so sexy! (p. 46). This anthropomorphism can prove to be a source of further student misconceptions. There are a variety of less well known chemical reactions chosen by the authors as examples such as living on a desert island using its natural resources in a self-sufficient manner; this was extremely innovative and showed possible practical applications of chemistry. In the areas of physical and general chemistry, the authors do a good job of providing examples of typical calculations with which students need to be familiar. Areas of descriptive chemistry in inorganic and organic chemistry are difficult as students may often be required recall the practical details of experiments that they have carried out, whereas cartoon guides need to cut descriptions to a minimum number of words. Similarly industrial chemistry may prove difficult if details of industrial processes are required. Overall, The cartoon guide to chemistry covers more than most Year 12 curricula and could find a place in some university courses. There will be teachers who dislike the approaches to some topics or find definitions incomplete, but the appeal that a cartoon approach makes to some students should override these concerns. This book really covers much general and physical chemistry well, so can be recommended as an alternative approach. BILL PALMER

Esta serie me encanta, además de que se aprende se hace de forma divertida, en mi opiniòn es recomendable tanto si se sabe sobre el tema como si no se sabe.

Bought my kids this for heading into high school - they actually read it & was a perfect primer for them to get the foundational understanding needed before taking chemistry classes... Fast forward a few years, & I re-bought it (gifted on the original book) as a refresher heading into university as they've got chem coming up & haven't taken it in a few years - both boys were excited to see it again :)

Divertente, carino, leggero, istruttivo. L'idea del fumetto è molto simpatica, scorrevole, forse a colori sarebbe più carino. Nel complesso mi piace molto!

Fun, but at times slightly confusing somehow Perhaps am I still lacking certain basic knowledge about chemistry, nevertheless interesting read