Suggestions needed

My daughter teaches high school science and has asked me for a list of science books, fiction or non-fiction, that would turn on young readers with a great range of abilities. The previous epidemiology list and following comments looked promising, but frankly I'm at a loss to come up with such books for younger readers.

Suggestions?

Thanks.

I think if you looked up some popular science books geared toward the layperson, it should be okay for high schoolers (unless by “varying abilities”, you actually mean different reading levels).

I’ve seen The Hot Zone by Richard Preston used in high school.

Some of my non-fiction recommendations off the top of my head:
Jacobson's organ and the remarkable nature of smell by Lyall Watson
The botany of desire : a plant's eye view of the world by Michael Pollan
Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-Eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space by Michael Ray Taylor
Rats: observations on the history and habitat of the city's most unwanted inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
The seven daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes

As for science-related fiction, have you seen Lablit.com? They have a list of novels and plays dealing with science (but are not science fiction).

Mind hacks : tips and tools for using your brain by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb - short independent chapters.

You can browse in the book on O'Reilly's site:

Table of Contents | Index | Sample Hacks

My high school had a few science choices in their summer reading lists. It think I chose The Double Helix. It's an enjoyable read, but it's controversial for how the author downplays the roles of others in the discovery. There's science, but there's also a bit of a soap opera in the lab.

I can't remember too many of the others - I think one of E. O. Wilson's was there.

Not on that list, but I really enjoyed Carl Sagan's book about astronomy / planetary science, Pale Blue Dot. It's not as tough a read as, say Cosmos, and I think it's well within a high schooler's grasp.

I profitably read books by Richard Dawkins, such as The Selfish Gene, in high school. Feynman might also be worth looking into to.

Oliver Sacks' books.

Some biology books I think would be interesting for high-school students:

Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation by Olivia Judson - despite the title, I think it's appropriate and accessible to high-school-aged kids - it's a series of questions from various critters written to a sex advice columnist, and then the answers explain a lot of behavioral/reproductive biology: sexual vs. asexual reproduction, monogamous, polygamous, polyandrous, and promiscuous mating systems, parental care, etc. Very funny and a lot of cool bits of natural history.

The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner - the classic book about evolution occurring before our eyes, also a good description of doing biological research and fieldwork.

Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams - less academic and more funny/travelogue in style, but funny account of his journeys to see some highly endangered animals in their natural habitats.

Breakfast of Biodiversity by John Vandermeer - How agriculture (coffee in particular, but also others) is contributing to the destruction of the rainforests.

The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard Cytowic - Slightly out of date but very interesting book about synaesthesia (a condition in which a single experience triggers more than one sense - hence, someone could "hear" the color blue or determine that a chicken dinner didn't feel pointy enough). I read this in my senior year of high school, and thought it was fascinating.

In Search of the Golden Frog by Marty Crump - Partly about rainforest conservation, partly about being a tropical research biologist.

Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould - Kind of dense, but really interesting look at the fossils of the Burgess Shale and why evolution has taken the path it has.

The Velocity of Honey by Jay Ingram - A series of short pieces explaining everyday phenomenon (leaf color change, why does it seem to take longer getting some place vs. coming home, does toast land butter side down?, etc.). Covers a range of biology, physics, and psychology.

I would also think Jared Diamond's stuff would be appropriate, although some of it blends into anthropology instead of "hard" science.

For fiction... oof, that's hard. A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle has the Murrays going inside mitochondria. Watership Down is pretty well researched about rabbit behavior. Clan of the Cave Bear for archaeology? Some Michael Crichton? Neanderthal by John Darnton is a Crichton-equivalent about finding Neanderthals still alive. Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane and Fluke by Christopher Moore are both about whales, but I wouldn't put either of them in the "science" category. The Loop by Nicholas Evans is good for wolf behavior. Flowers for Algernon for more psychology? Barbara Kingsolver was trained as a biologist, so her stuff tends to be science-accurate. Life of Pi? Ishmael by Daniel Quinn straddles the science/social science divide, but was one of the most important books I read in high school (for a project on population growth).

That's a lot. Sorry.

I can't really think of any despite having an intrest in similar topics. Much impressed by Fyrefly's list.

Would second the Crichton ones as fiction possabilities. Particularly Prey and state of fear. Prey isn't a particularly good book in my opinion, but is a good starting point for a lot of discussion on Nano-tech and computing, topical issues often raised in the media recently.

> fyrefly98

What do you mean, 'sorry'?? ;-) I just ordered The velocity of honey because of your list.

> Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams

At anotherchancetosee.blogspot.com you can see how the endangered animals Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine described are doing today.

You can read the first pages of the book at amazon.

From the chapter about kakapos (p. 110 ff.):

"The kakapo is looking for good accoustics when he does this, so the track and bowl system will often be sited against a rock facing out across a valley, and when the mating season arrives he sits in his bowl and booms. (...)
The booming noise is deep, very deep, just on the threshold of what you can acutally hear and what you can feel. This means that it carries for very great distances, but that you can't tell where it's coming from. (...)
The female kakapo can't tell where the booming is coming from, either, which is something of a shortcoming in a mating call. 'Come and get me!' 'Where are you?' 'Come and get me!' 'Where the hell are you?' 'Come and get me!' 'Look, do you want me to come or not?' 'Come and get me!' 'Oh, for heaven's sake!' 'Come and get me!' 'Go and stuff yourself,' is roughly how it would go in human terms."

:-)

Speaking of Douglas Adams, there is also The Science of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Michael Hanlon.

See table of contents etc.

Any of the science of discworld books.

A couple people mentioned Michael Crichton books ... while I admittedly haven't read the ones mentioned, my understanding is that his grasp on science leaves something to be desired.

The Edward O. Wilson book Naturalist might be worth looking at, especially as it includes stuff about him growing up.

For fiction, I really like Robert J. Sawyer's books. The science isn't always accurate (it's often not) but his books explore a lot of different concepts and scientific theories that have inspired me to do some additional research on the ideas he puts forth.

If it's for high school you may wish to avoid his Neanderthal Parallax series, because it does deal with issues like rape and there's at least one fairly detailed sex scene in the series, as well as some violence. I'm not sure if recommending books with content like that would cause the school/teacher liability issues.

I thought State of Fear was a good read even if just for really making you think about global warming and how statistics and data can be manipulated - I think it could open up some really interesting dialogues.

#12 "A couple people mentioned Michael Crichton books ... while I admittedly haven't read the ones mentioned, my understanding is that his grasp on science leaves something to be desired"

remembering that he writes fiction - so he's allowed to change what he needs to - I've found it pretty fair. A lot of the science he portrays is feasible at today's level, but not yet practical. ie the basic science principles are ok - but there are a lot of technical hurdles to be overcome, before it would actually work.

Hence they make good discussion points - we can nearly do this x, should we? what might happen? what would be the benefits? can we imagine ALL the risks? MC obviously then focuses in on one overlooked risk which runs amok nearly but not quite killing everyone in the name of a good story. But the initial scenarios are worth thinking about.

I've always really liked the memoir type of book for science inspiration. Having actual people and events happen that they might be able to relate to seems like it would work well for kids. So I'll second E.O. Wilson's Naturalist and throw in Edens Lost and Found which was also a PBS series, and Sea Legs, as well as any of the Gerald Durrell books which are older but they're quite funny and span both fiction and non.

Oh, and Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything. It spans almost all of science and history and I love his writing. Plus, he's hilarious. He actually puts a lot of fact into his other books as well like A Walk in the Woods.

E.O. Wilson's Biophilia seems appropriate for getting someone into science. Its short and engrossing.

In highschool Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene was what changed my mind away from wanting to do aerospace engineering or anything else (I had no idea) to solidly wanting to study Biology. Matt Ridley's Genome helped with that.

David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo is a great read for introducing someone to Biology and some of the current issues facing us such as extinction and loss of biodiversity.

The Birth of the Mind by Gary F. Marcus is a short piece that briefly explains the brain and our minds through the lens of biological explanation. Really great for opening someones eyes up to the complexity of the brain and its import on our lives and consciousness.

The Gecko's foot. I only just started reading in it but I think it might be interesting for class reading. High tech materials and building principles that are taken from nature's inventions.

There aren't as many illustrations as expected.

Which can't be said about Heaven and earth : unseen by the naked eye - astounding pictures!

As in Earth from above / Earth from above : 365 days by Yann Arthus Bertrand (does geography / anthropology count as science?)

Amusing: I wish I hadn't said that: the experts speak and get it wrong.

#15 I have laughed so hard at Gerald Durrel's books & ditto for James Herriot's too! Animals both wild & domestic do such crazy things but no half as funnnier than another 'animal', namely 'us'.
Bill Bryson is also a very funny as well as informative writer. Stephen Jay Gould's writing is very dense & he was also very prolific. He also had a great sense of humor! Vanye

A few nice high school-accessible books in the cognitive science / neuroscience category:

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker

The Human Brain by Susan Greenfield

Perception by Irvin Rock

The Mind of a Mnemonist by Luria

The cartoon history of the universe
The cartoon guide to the environment
The cartoon guide to chemistry
The cartoon guide to physics
the cartoon guide to genetics

For human biology theres Blood and guts a bit cartoony in the picture style but contains many useful bits of information in a fun way.

While you might not be looking for cartoons, the book Einstein Simplified by Sidney Harris is great, and the cartoons are often useful to begin the discussion of scientific topics or methods. You can also find his cartoons online at:
http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/

I found an excellent fiction recommendation: Peeps by Scott Westerfeld.

It's a YA novel in which vampirism is caused by a sexually-transmitted parasite - most parasite-positive (PPs, or Peeps for short) people become vampires, but some few are relatively immune to the parasite's effects and become carriers. The book opens with one of the carriers, Cal, having to hunt down his ex-girlfriends, who are now all vampires.

It's a fun read, geared towards highschoolers, has a lot of facts about real parasites, and the science (parasitology/epidemiology) is quite accurate - Westerfeld has said that he got most of his info from Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer.

I found the three "Science of discworld" books (The Science of Discworld. , The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, The Science of Discworld 3. Darwin's Watch.: Science of Discworld III) a good mixture of funny fantasy by Terry Pratchett and advanced science by several scientists.
The books cover all fields of science, but they could be above highschool level, on the other hand they are really funny. If there are any fans of Terry Pratchett in the class, they will love it.

The coming plague : newly emerging diseases in a world out of balance by Laurie Garrett. This book fascinated me a decade ago--with avian flu in the news, maybe today's highschool students would also find it of interest. You might also have the kids google US and Canadian plans for pandemic influenza. YIKES!!

Not sure it's entirely at the right level, but the Mr Tomkins books by George Gamow are a quite readable introduction to physics - if I remember correctly, they were written around the fifties and focus on areas such as relativity and QM.

Don't know if this is necessarily "science" per se, but I believe Secrets of Mental Math is a pretty good book for sparking interest in math.

#8, 14: It's true that Crichton writes fiction, but State of Fear is a strange mix of plot and the author's own political views. When he was out promoting the book he was basically insisting that global-warming is a myth and that second-hand smoke hasn't been shown to be harmful. Someone once said about him "Michael Crichton knows just enough science to do a lot of damage."

My own personal favorite is Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrmage to the Dawn of Life (the American printing is subtitled "to the dawn of evolution" instead, maybe the American printers were a bit queasy about equating evolution with real life?). Lots of good color pictures clear diagrams. Only drawback is that it's a bit of a tome (big and heavy). But it's not something you really need read through beginning to end and it serves very well as a reference that students can just browse through at their own pace. It pretty much takes for granted that evolution is true, so it's able to get right to the good stuff about how we are related to everything else on Earth via our common ancestors (including an interesting discovery about the hippopotamus' closest living relatives).

Relativity: The Special and General Theory, by Albert Einstein is very student-friendly, quite short, and divided up into little vignettes that nicely build upon eachother.

More of a history book, but still within the realm of space sciences, is Robert Zimmerman's Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel. Probably the least student-friendly as it's just a regular book, but the accounts touch upon a variety of issues experienced by cosmonauts and astronauts in maintaining various space stations (notably Mir). From orbital dynamics and atmospheric issues, to growing plants in zero-g, it's an enjoyable history of human space achievement that is often over-looked in the face of the better known Apollo and shuttle programs. There's this surprising account of Pete Conrad who while up in Skylab was able to run around the circular edge of the module's walls using nothing but his own inertia.

>The female kakapo can't tell where the >booming is coming from, either, which is >something of a shortcoming in a mating >call. 'Come and get me!' 'Where are you?' >'Come and get me!'

is this about birds or the kids with car stereo systems?

the teacher may want to request eval copies from a publisher. the newer books may be more exciting for young readers e.g. The Elegant Universe DVD and book. PBS DVDs are cheap and give motivation to read a book.

if it qualifies under fair use, maybe some copies of Scientific American articles.

> is this about birds or the kids with car stereo systems?

Both.

Which makes me think: maybe the female kakapos avoid the males on purpose? ;-)

Most libraries still have a few of Isaac Asimov's non-fiction works; he wrote literally hundreds of them, on EVERY science subject that exists. All of them are VERY well written, great for young readers. Many of them are dated, science-wise, but on his own subjects (chemistry and physiology) Asimov is timeless. He also wrote outstanding books on mathematics that actually aren't scary.

And his fiction is good, too (wink!).

How about Spook or Stiff by Mary Roach?