Customer Reviews

Skyscrapers!: Super Structures to Design & Build (Kaleidoscope Kids Books (Williamson Publishing))

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

 

 

The basic purpose of this book is to teach young people the how's and why's of building skyscrapers. Significant information is explained with stunning clarity. For example, "it's not the strength of the steel frame that limits the height of skyscrapers, it's the speed and arrangement of elevators" and "the Empire State Building produces about 100 tons of garbage per month. That is equivalent to the weight of about 20 adult elephants." Who could read that and not want to read more?

This book tells all from taking soil samples before the groundbreaking to maintaining the structure after the building has been completed. All along the way activities are suggested to give emphasis to the topics covered. This is a fun, interesting, and informative book that will keep its value for a long time. It is filled with so much information that children will return to it again and again.

My children and I found Skyscrapers to be a wonderful book full of hands-on activities that are meaningful.Book projects and reports are numerous in our school district. My daughter's building project was constructed with information and ideas from this book. The illustrations and directions included in Skyscrapers! are motivating and kid-friendly. Ms. Johmann's writing style is easy to read and understand. My children learn more about the topic because they are interested in this type of non-fiction.

We find this is also true of Ms. Johmann's other books that we have purchased: Going West and The Lewis & Clark Expedition.

We highly recommend all 3 of these books for elementary and intermediate age students!

Ideal for 6 - 10 year olds, my son and his friends love the books.

I purchased this book as a gift for my nephew, who loves buildings and construction. The information in the book seemed really interesting and solid. It contained both background about famous skyscrapers and information about how they are build, and even tips for building your own model skyscrapers, which was great.

The only problem is that the illustrations seemed designed for a much younger child than the text. The text is quite advanced, but the first thought when I, my mother, and my nephew each looked at the book was that it was more for babies (or at least 5-6 year olds). If they got rid of the primitive, childish cartoons, this book would easily be worth a 5 rating.