Buried Sunlight

A book review of Molly Bang’s children’s book, Buried Sunlight.

If only there had been a set of beautiful, clearly written books that provided both historical context and scientific details for all those Hs and Os and Cs with their little subscript numbers. There are real plants and animals and houses and power plants and tractors to grasp hold of here. And they are all spewing out little dots that stand for elements: white dots are O (oxygen), black dots are C (carbon). Yellow represents energy in all its forms, sometimes as a halo around an animal, sometimes as waves of little yellow dots moving through space. Seeing clusters of CO₂ (a black dot surrounded by two white dots), bubbles of pure oxygen (pairs of white dots), and carbon chains (black dots glued together with little yellow dots) makes sense AND connects to everything I was trying to learn in science class. Thank you, Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm!

Read the full review at The Horn Book.