CM Magazine: If We Could See the Air

________________ CM . . . . Volume I Number X . . . . August 18, 1995

If We Could See the Air
David Suzuki.
Illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes.
Don Mills: Stoddart. 32pp, paper, $6.95.
ISBN 0-7737-5666-3

Subject Heading:
Air-Juvenile fiction.

Grades 1 - 4 / Ages 6 - 9.
Review by Dennis Wood.

This book is a disappointment. Suzuki is a national treasure, whose popularization of science has deepened and broadened the understanding of many Canadians. If We Could See the Air misses the mark because it promises a story and delivers a lecture. Readers of The Magic School Bus expect a lecture, and facts at every turn, but readers of this book are led to expect a story which the book doesn't deliver.

Wherever the dialogue devolves into a science lecture, which is frequently, the narrative suffers. Still, Fernandes's delightful illustrations go a long way toward redeeming the book, doing all they can to support the concepts.

Nonfiction for primary grades is a tough balancing act. Readers must be enticed and informed. This book does both, but fails the most important test: "Read it again!" will not be any child's refrain. If We Could See the Air is inexpensive, and school libraries may want it to fill a gap at j533.6, but it is not as good as the first in the "Nature All Around" series, Nature in the Home.

Not recommended.

Dennis Wood is a school librarian at Miami, Manitoba.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - August 18, 1995.