Customer Reviews

Adventures With a Microscope

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Microscopes in toy stores haven't really changed much with time. There are better-quality models now available, but the box still usually contains the 'scope and a few dozen glass slides of blood, insect parts, and such. Rarely are the directions enough to keep a child's interest in microscopy alive for more than a few weeks, at best. This book offers a guided tour of the microscopic world, in the form of 59 "adventures" which range from the kitchen to backyard pond or shoreline. More than instructions on how to capture a fly and examine its feet, the adventure includes a discussion of how the fly can walk on the ceiling. The microscope, then, becomes one gateway to rich discoveries in nature study. If there is a problem with this book, it is its age. This is a reprinted version of the 1941 edition. Many of the supplies recommended "for your laboratory table" are no longer easily available, while some are now considered hazardous. The fly mentioned earlier is to be killed with chloroform, for example. There are safer alternatives available, but the reader will have to do some further research. Nonetheless, it's a stimulating book, charmingly illustrated with many line drawings. The language is at times too difficult for younger readers, but a parent/child team of adventurers will find it useful.

While it's true that this book was written a long time ago and many of the chemicals will no longer be sold to children, it still teaches science to children the way it should be. I'd recommend this text over any of the recent efforts that compromise the science for political correctness.

Furthermore, the author does not talk down to his audience. Adults reading along and helping their children will be just as engaged and informed. Scientific terminology is used in the book but it's explained very well. Since it's written for the intelligent reader however, it's only explained once.

Headstrom's insightful observations are as relevant now as they were when they were written, and this should provide a sound basis for further study and exploration for the inquiring mind. The constant use of puns and the style of writing comes from a time when the world was a different place, however this adds to the charm of the book. 142 line drawings are used throughout.

I'd highly recommend this book to adults and children of any age taking their first steps in microscopy. I'd also recommend that adults do not give a child a microscope without a copy of this book.

Subjects covered include protozoa, algae, diatoms, desmids, flowers, insects, spiders, common food items, mosses molds and lichens, higher invertebrates, blood, and forensic subjects such as fibers, hair and fingerprints.

someone has given you a microscope for your birthday or Christmas or some other gift giving day. You have examined it, gone to the pantry after looking at the prepared slides that came with your gift and taken samples of what is available there, then gone out into the kitchen, maybe the bathroom. taken dust samples from other rooms and looked at all of them. You were impressed with what you saw but in most cases that is all it was, impressed, you did not know what you had seen. Now it is time for Headstrom's book, this is the only place where it earns the five stars I have given it. You need to know where to go to get samples, you need to know how to draw those samples, and you need to know what you are looking at in these samples. Headstrom's book does this for many things.
There is a caveat connected with all this. The book is old and even when new it needed an additional book to go along with it. The book is written for amateures and gives the parts of a microscope and lists a number of supplies to go with the microscope. Where does one get these supplies? Some can be procured from the manufacturer of the scope but most can not. Some are obsolete, some are unobtainable and some have been replaced by more modern equivalents. Catalogs from scientific supply houses may supply the answer, thus they they become a necessary adjunct to Headstrom's book. However this does not detract from his purpose, a little bit of taxonomy, a little bit of origins, and a lot of information. One of the big faults in his book is his lack of specifying the magnification necessary to be used when viewing the specimens. Even better would be a digression into the uses of different magnifications and what each is useful for in viewing the specimen. There are a lot of books out there, there may be one with this information. If so, anyone who knows of such, please let me know as well as others seeking this information.

This book was already a classic when I first read it in the 1950's. All of the "142 Illustrations" touted on the cover are simple line drawings; there are no photos at all and no index. I would recommend this only to someone like myself who waxes nostalgic for biology before DNA's structure and function were discovered, and before microns were called micrometers and only a pretentious Britisher wannabe would spell that "micrometres". The raft of gorgeous modern microscopy books for kids are far superior.