Complicated Stuff in Simple Words

Children, especially boys, love asking how things work.  How does a 2,000 jumbo jet get off the ground?  How does a camera take pictures? How does a nuclear power plant work, and how is it different from a nuclear bomb? (Perhaps that last one is just my children.)  On the one hand, I'm glad my children respect me enough that they think I can spout answers to these and innumerable other questions off the top of my head.  But on the other hand, even if I did remember everything I learned in high school physics, how can I explain it in terms an eight-year-old will understand?

Randall Munroe has accepted this challenge with his book Thing Explainer, published in 2015.  Munroe is known for his extremely nerdy web comic strip xkcd, but has an extensive science background and previously worked as a robot engineer at NASA.  As a crazy thought experiment carried to its absurd logical conclusion (which is also a good description of most of his comics), Munroe asked himself, "Can I explain complex scientific topics using only the most common 1,000 words in the English language?"

Part of the fun of this approach is simply figuring out what he's referring to.  "Boat that goes under the sea" is clearly a submarine, but it might take a minute to realize that a "Hole-making city boat" is a big rig for offshore oil drilling.  Other topics covered are household appliances, the periodic table, tectonic plates, jet engines, smart phones, and much more.  All are illustrated in his trademark comic style of stick figured and line drawings.  This fits the material perfectly, since it also reduces everything to its simplest form, just in the visual sphere.

International Space Station, i.e. "shared space house"

The book is fascinating, and I've learned a lot from it myself, such as what actually happens when you save something to the "cloud."  I don't believe it was actually marketed as a children's book when it came out, though the appeal to young people is obvious, and my children have read it to themselves again and again.  My one quibble is that the 1,000 word cut-off is extremely limiting, and actually adds more confusion in many cases.  Everyone knows what a dishwasher is, but because it doesn't make the list of 1,000 most common words, we have to read about a "box that cleans food holders."  This is part of the conceit, of course, but I would like to see the concept expanded with a slightly larger selection of vocabulary.

Ages: 8 to adult

Rating: A-