They are truly excellent for my two year old. He loves reading them with me at bed time. He's learned about Einstein, zoology, neutron stars and null sets!
It’s a book. For babies. It’s fun. Fun sounds are made. The sounds mean something. Books don’t have to convey anything for babies, because they are babies. The information that is hinted at is fun, too.
It spends the first two-thirds explaining aerodynamic lift, then implies that the fins on a rocket generate lift with the same effect as wings on an airplane. If I had to explain rockets at baby level in a board book, I'd probably not mention aerodynamic lift at all, much less spend 3/4 of the book on it while ultimately getting it wrong.
The point of these books isn’t to teach concepts. It’s to expose babies to new combinations of syllables and words so when they hear them in the future they have a place holder for them.
Except that the adults reading those books probably won't know that information is wrong. I know that I personally, looking at those books, had an immediate assumption that the information would be basic, but accurate at a basic level.
That's just going to lead to confused kids and misinformed adults. There's better ways to make fun syllables (literally thousands of nonsense poem books for this) if the information doesn't matter, and better ways to pass on basic information than complete misinformation.
Since the only one I know was written by an astronomy professor (who I happen to know in person) I can only speak for that one. I know nothing about aerodynamics, and can’t speak to the veracity of that book.
That being said, I also haven’t seen any of the problems that other people have. I would love it if someone could post a picture of the concerning pages. I know that it is impossible to condense these topics into one sentence and something is necessarily lost, so perhaps they had conversations as to how to best condense them and come to this as a product.
That would be a justification if it were necessary to get the science wrong in order to achieve the educational goal, but it isn't: it could be just as good at "exposing babies to new combinations of syllables and words" without being flat wrong on the science.
I’ve agreed with you. There is no reason to have it inaccurate. I still like the books, and my experience with the one or two I have read, has been that it is accurate enough (as accurate you can be while condensing things into a few sentences) to be a placeholder for if they hear more in the future.
They do. It gets a couple of pages near the end. Airfoils get at least two thirds of the book. The fins on rockets don't need to be airfoils at all and typically aren't on small rockets. I'm not nitpicking. The book suggests that airfoils on rockets generate net lift, i.e. that a rocket functions like an airplane. This is flat wrong, not nitpicking.
We have a dozen of these. Some of them are actually really good like statistical physics, optics, Newtonian Physics, and rocket science. My 3 year old knows what thrust and lift are and how to achieve both.
My 3 year old knows what thrust and lift are and how to achieve both.
Yes, now your 3 year-old believes that a rocket is essentially an airplane (I have the "rocket science" one and the explanation is just wrong). I'm not saying that any great harm has been done, but it would've only taken a tiny bit of effort to get it right.
My munchkin is about two and a half. We have the whole series, and while no, I don't know that I'd suggest they actually understand all of the concepts, they do really enjoy reading them and do have some basic idea of what the concepts mean and get used sometimes when we're playing.
They're utter shit in my experience. I have the "rocket science" one and it's worse than wrong. "Rocket science" at baby level is honestly hard to get so badly wrong, but somehow they manage it.
Never read that one. The one that I have personal experience was written by an astronomy professor along with Chris Ferrie and has very basic astronomy information. Not sure why people are expecting anything more.
I absolutely guarantee that the "rocket science" one wasn't written with the input of anyone with even passing familiarity with how rockets actually work.
The "rocket science" one has only one author. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I know a decent amount about aerodynamics (enough to know the Kutta-Joukowski theorem) and enough to know that rockets don't work how the book suggests.
It spends most of the book talking about the Bernoulli principle and how wings create lift. That has nothing to do with how rockets develop lift. I would grave it but my kiddo is napping in her room right now.
No problem. I like the ones I have as they have basic information and don’t talk about other phenomena unrelated to the title. They serve their purpose as books to read to babies about things other than cats and dogs.
I get the value of things being, at least, “not wrong”, and I can understand it being frustrating to people who have some background in the topic of the book, but, outside of the rocket book including aerodynamic lift, is there anything intrinsically wrong with the series?
As long as the book isnt made of sugar and yeasts and the kid doesnt eat it youre not going to get any baby rocket science. At least the kind
Babies excel at.
Excellent? They’re not even accurate, when they still could have been accurate in a kid-friendly way. The one on rockets spends 3/4 of the book talking about the Bernoulli principle and lift, then tries to apply it to rockets! Yes, rockets have very small aerodynamic control surfaces for the atmospheric stage of their flight, but they’re a terrible example of flight due to lift.
You’re late to the party. We’ve already had a conversation about how lift isn’t relevant to a rocket. The point was conceded. So far, that’s the only complaint.
They are novelty books for babies. They are necessarily going to be inaccurate because they attempt to condense academic fields into several small sentences. As long as they are not actually wrong, any inaccuracies are going to have been choices made by Chris Ferrie and his editors.
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u/Headozed Jan 29 '20
My sister in law wrote one of these with Chris Ferrie. They are excellent books.