Brain Safari is a really fun book in concept, but it lacked a bit in execution. Kids these days require more entertainment factor in their books, and this one was more textbook looking than entertainment looking.

Having said that, it was a very interesting book with several astonishing experiments for kids to try demonstrating how their brain works. The explanations were clear and engaging for older kids. Younger kids will still enjoy doing the experiments, but they’ll probably need someone to help them with the larger words and blocks of text. I enjoyed reading it.

I gratefully received this book as an eARC from the author, publisher, and NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review.

Brain Safari by Eric Haseltine is a fun book written by an experienced neuroscientist. This is such a fun book for kids to explore how their brains work. There are many quick experiments to do, both experiments that require kids to find things and do the experiment and quick experiments that require looking at illusions in the book. Overall, this is such a fun book and wonderful for kids of all ages. Younger kids would love it when read with an adult that can help them with the larger amounts of text in the book and with figuring out the experiments. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.

I agree with other reviewers that the presentation of information in this book isn't as interesting as it could be. It's basically a textbook. However, there is a lot of solid, scientific info here and the experiments are great. The main idea is to get kids to learn about the way the human brain perceives things using hands-on experiments. I'm not an educator, but I would recommend this based on the content, if not the presentation. It's the kind of book I would have liked as a nerdy kid.

Disclosure: I received a digital ARC of this book in exchange for honest feedback.
#BrainSafari #NetGalley

Interesting facts about the brain. Perfect for primary students.

An interesting premise but unfortunately I was not able to connect with the material.

Brain Safari is a non-fic book about your brain and your senses. Go through 40+ chapters where Dr. Haseltine, a neuroscientist that wrote for Discover and PsychologyToday explains how your brain works through simple experiments that will demonstrate your own cognitive biases, as well as gaps in your senses and how they can be tricked. Some of these trivia includes nerve signals about temperature travel at different speeds, or temperature sensing nerves are not evenly distributed. It also goes into visual and auditory illusions, and lots of other interesting tidbits about how our brain perceives things (how to find your visual blindspot, for instance).

However, the "safari" theme was not utilized successfully. Do you really perform experiments on safari's? I think a different metaphor is called for.

Also, some of the experiments are designed with two people in mind, and this can be difficult if the reader is alone. It may be better to only have experiments that do not need a partner, even if a chapter or two had to be excised, with the two-person experiments relegated to the back of the book as an appendix.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, as it was written in an engaging manner that simple enough even high schoolers or perhaps even middle schoolers should have no problem understanding it. But the book seems to be a bit of wasted metaphor about a safari. I'd say "expedition: human senses and perceptions" may be a more appropriate metaphor for the book and made it more engaging.

This book was a collection of experiments to show kids how their brains function, and while some of the experiments were fun, most of them felt very generic and uninspired. I honestly can't see many children in the target age range being entertained by this book for long, as the text itself is pretty boring and slow.

While this book had lots of interesting experiments, I disliked the format. It really came across as a home published work with poor illustrations. The reoccurring pink brain with a tiny jeep was terrible.

An interesting concept that unfortunately lacks the proper finish. Looks like a school book, and not the fun kind... But some of the experiments are fun and some are even mind-blowing. Sad that the rest of the book is not.