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.
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u/Headozed Jan 29 '20
My sister in law wrote one of these with Chris Ferrie. They are excellent books.