Geology Is a Piece of Cake

When textbooks fall short, head to the kitchen. That’s the thinking behind this clever cooking-meets-science book, which uses cakes to help readers understand how minerals form rocks (via the example of a carrot cake) and the movement of tectonic plates (mimicked in the way two halves of a whoopie pie slide against icing), among other topics. (A “recipe” for granite is also included, though it requires heating the batter to 900 °C, followed by a million years of cooling.) Between recipes, Q&A sections explore a variety of subjects including weathering, fossils, and the Earth’s age. Photographs augment the recipes and discussions, and Coppens builds scientific explanations into each recipe: “The batter is like the magma that will slowly harden to become an intrusive igneous rock.” An unexpected (and tasty) entry point to better understanding multiple aspects of geology. Ages 7–9. (May)