Every Day, Chemistry

Chemistry isn’t something that requires test tubes and goggles, as a parent and child discover in these pages—instead, “science is all around us.” Sooy’s (Our World Is Relative) setup explanation may confuse young readers and even some adults (“Substances become something new—not just by cutting or freezing or physical change, but by changing what they are, their chemical composition”), but easy-to-grasp examples soon take over as the white-skinned family moves through their day. Every- thing they encounter involves chemistry: the breakfast toast, the rust on a slide, the brown coloration on an apple, the shampoo that “foams, lifting away sweat and dirt,” the pizza dough rising, even breathing itself. Pang (MVP: Most Valuable Puppy) keeps the bright-eyed, engaged protagonists and their actions front and center, in cheery color and clean digital lines that have the cozy familiarity of TV animation. The slight story doesn’t offer specifics about how the listed reactions take place, but back matter offers some help, in the form of questions “to help determine if a chemical reaction has occurred” and a real-life example of chemical and physical change: bread baking. Ages 4–8. (June)■