I received a free digital review copy through NetGalley. This is a cool combo of history and science. Each experiment is connected to a scientist from history.

This is a brilliant way to do a science book for kids -- kids read a short biography of a scientist in history with a fun illustration of the person, and then do a science experiment based on the scientist's discoveries. Many of the materials are things you find around the house but you will need to purchase some things such as pourable soap kits, alligator clips, water dispensers and a color-reading smart phone app. A resource supply list is provided at the back.

There is great diversity in the scientists, and there are probably more women than men are featured. The scientists start in ancient Mesopotamia with fragrance distillation and learning about a woman named Tapputi-Bilatikallim around 1200 BC, and go right through to present day with a scientist named Raychelle Burks and colormetric sensors. Twenty-five scientists and experiments are featured in all. Topics include the pH scale, DNA, dispersion of environmental contaminants (Rachel Carson of Silent Spring), olfactory chemistry, surface tension, synthetic dyes, carbonation, oxidation, batteries (the lemon battery experiment), medicinal plant compounds (based on Nobel Prize winning Chinese scientist Tu Youyou, who studied ancient Chinese herbal remedies and discovered that wormwood would kill malaria even though modern experiments seemed to say it didn't work -- because she realized in the traditional recipes it was never boiled), and so on.

Experiments reflect the nature of the discovery but change the details. For instance, in the herbal remedy experiment kids will simply gather aloe vera gel from leaves to use as a sunburn remedy. Color photos of kids doing the steps are provided for every experiment.

This would make an excellent resource for homeschoolers doing elementary or middle school chemistry.

This is a colorful, fun book that will teach kids much about the history of science and also provide some pretty interesting experiments that they can learn along with. Highly recommended.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

Awesome educational book with fantastic illustrations/pictures! Each section features a different scientist and concept giving a brief biography and related homemade experiment. The experiments all use household or easy to find items. A perfect introduction to chemistry. I would definitely recommend this to budding scientists age 7/8 or older!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC.