LIGHT WAVES

The science of light: what it is, how it behaves, and how it colors, energizes, and illuminates our world.

Adler uses small steps to move readers from understanding that light is energy that can be transferred from the sun to plants and animals and to humans to the concept of light as streams of photons that travel in waves that can be reflected, refracted, or absorbed. Demonstrations with common household items show children some properties of light: It travels in straight lines and can be bent or blocked. Adler ends with a discussion of color that will be accessible to children, Raff’s illustrations showing a prism breaking light into a rainbow and then the various colors as undulating lines of different wavelengths. Two further spreads describe infrared and ultraviolet light and how the reflection of light waves gives color to objects. The digital artwork is cartoony and features a pale-skinned adult farmer with curly brown hair, a child with similar features and skin tone, and a brown cow (originally brought into the tale as part of the energy chain—cow to hot dog to energy for humans—and later dressed as a stereotypical nerdy scientist: glasses, green lab coat with pens in breast pocket, red bow tie). Italicized words are defined within the text and in a closing glossary.

A good beginning look at light and all the ways it’s important to life on Earth.