| When our homeschool materials order arrived in | | | | very encouraging, especially for the young |
| the mail recently, I planned on looking through | | | | scientist, because it explains that trial and error is |
| things to see if I wanted to return anything. Well, | | | | a crucial part of finding out facts of science. I |
| I ended up reading through "The Mystery of the | | | | don't want my kids to research a question, make |
| Periodic Table" by Benjamin D. Wiker and going to | | | | a hypothesis, do an experiment, get an |
| bed at one am! | | | | unexpected result, and count it a total failure. |
| Chemistry was something I 'got through' in high | | | | The author also goes into some effort to show |
| school. But this book was so engaging and | | | | how the chemists of days past stumbled in a |
| interesting, and so clearly laid out the development | | | | group effort spanning centuries to come to what |
| of modern Chemistry, that I was unwilling to put | | | | is presently known as the Periodic Table. Until I |
| it down. It is written in a conversational tone, and | | | | read this book, I thought that the Periodic Table |
| speaks directly to the reader. It makes the early | | | | was just a reference guide, and now I know it is |
| alchemists and the later chemists into real people | | | | a historical, methodical, even beautiful and |
| with real investigative passions. | | | | interesting diagram. |
| There were two things that I really appreciated | | | | Our homeschool follows the Classical Education |
| from this book which sort of surprised me: First, | | | | Model. I plan on reading this book to my third |
| it was made evident that an intelligence was | | | | grader at the beginning of her first study of |
| behind the elements. The book points out many | | | | Chemistry. Then, when we cycle back to |
| ways that Chemistry is orderly, exact and not | | | | Chemistry in seventh grade, she can read it on |
| accidental. He doesn't say, "God invented the | | | | her own. I think it is an excellent value. I know of |
| elements and their properties" but he has at least | | | | no other product like it that includes all the |
| three paragraphs full of exclamation points and | | | | chemists and their experiments, sketches of their |
| sentences which express wonder at the | | | | apparati, and how they worked off each other's |
| perfection that the chemists were astounded to | | | | contributions and change each others outlooks. It |
| find. | | | | includes updates up to almost present day. It is an |
| Second, the author repeatedly describes how the | | | | excellent explanation of many basic chemical |
| chemist had the wrong idea but experimented the | | | | elements; a few experiments; entirely comprised |
| right way; or he had just the right idea, but made | | | | of biographies; easily God-glorifying; written in an |
| the wrong conclusion. I found these instances | | | | exciting manner which carries the reader along. |