The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry (Cartoon Guide To...) (Paperback)

by Larry Gonick (Author), Craig Criddle (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A refreshingly humorous but thorough ancillary guide to general chemistry from the author of the bestselling The Cartoon Guide to Physics and The Cartoon Guide to Genetics.

The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry, a collaboration between pre–eminent scientist Professor Craig Criddle of Stanford University and cartoonist Larry Gonick, is a complete and up–to–date course in college level chemistry. In an engaging and humorous graphic style, the book covers both the history and the basics, including early ideas and techniques, electrochemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, environmental chemistry, physics as chemistry; and much more.

o Ideal for advanced high school students, university students and independent learners.

o o Larry Gonick's bestselling Cartoon Guide series, comprised of eleven books, have sold more than a half a million copies and been translated into more than a dozen languages.

o Teachers, researchers, and students around the world have embraced Larry Gonick's unique ability to make difficult subjects fun, interesting and easy–to–understand while still relaying the essential information in a clear, organized and accurate format. In 2003 Larry Gonick won the Harvey Award for the year's best graphic album of original material for The Cartoon History of the Universe III. The prestigious award, named for Mad pioneer Harvey Kurtzman is considered to be the Oscar of the comic–book world.

About the Author

Larry Gonick has been creating comics that explain history, science, and other big subjects for more than thirty years, starting with Blood from a Stone: A Cartoon Guide to Tax Reform in 1971. He has been a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and is currently staff cartoonist for Muse magazine. He has nearly one million copies of the Cartoon Guides in print.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Collins Reference (May 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060936770
• ISBN-13: 978-0060936778
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,002 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #1 in	Books > Entertainment > Humor > Science & Scientists
  #3 in	Books > Entertainment > Humor > Limericks & Humorous Verse
  #8 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Education > Specific Skills > Science & Technology

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellant introduction to Chemistry, June 6, 2005

By	Book Reader "JRR" (Irvine, CA United States) - See all my reviews

For someone that is just learning about chemistry this book is excellant. It provides a whimiscal and fun overview of chemistry that makes learning chemistry interesting.

It also includes highlights of chemistry that illustrate how chemical principles were discovered.

And it also illustrates in an interesting manner the applications and importance of chemistry.

If you are about to take your first chemistry class or have never had a chemistry class, this book will be a good introduction to chemistry. Or if it has been awhile since you have had chemistry this book may be an interesting review.

Note: While interesting reading, this book would be too light to be used as a text book for a class. It makes an interesting supplement.

64 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Can't Go Wrong with Larry Gonick, July 30, 2005

By	M. Shaffer (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been a fan of Larry Gonick`s work for years ever since I first stumbled onto his Cartoon Guide to Statistics. He covers a subject the way it should be covered-historically. Innovations in science and math have moved along together in a historical time line. It was this historical approach that made Carl Sagan's Cosmos series one of the greatest innovations in the effort to popularize science.

I have long said that we teach science backward. We still teach on a 19th Century model. We start with biology, then chemistry, and finally physics.

Even when I was in high school, I wished that I could take physics before chemistry. Before I was elected as a school board director, I was on our district's Gifted Advisory Council. I made the suggestion that we teach physics before chemistry and, then, biology last. I was immediately shot down by one of the other parents on the basis that sophomores do not have the math courses under their belts to tackle physics. So why not teach the math along with the science? Integrate it. (No, that would make it too relevant.)

I felt vindicated when a friend of mine reported that she attended a lecture by a Nobel laureate making the same assertion that I had been making for years-we teach science backwards. After all, the toughest course out there is biochemistry-at least that is what every med student I know has ever said. And biochemistry is the new frontier for blockbuster innovations-nano-technology not being the least of these frontiers.

Gonick underscores my assertion about teaching physics first, because in this book on chemistry, he introduces quantum mechanics, which is normally taught as physics, on page 28.

Don't let he word "cartoon" in Larry Gonick`s books fool you into thinking that these are easy fluff surveys of the subjects involved. He makes each subject accessible while being entertaining, but each book stands on its own as a complete basic survey course of the subject.

So when I needed to add about two dollars to my order to get free shipping, it took me about thirty seconds to find my book. I went right to Larry Gonick.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Lot To Cover, January 28, 2007

By	Dave_42 "Dave_42" (Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This is the first edition of "The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry" by Larry Gonick and Craig Criddle and was published in 2005. It is another of the series of Cartoon Guides which Larry Gonick has co-authored with scientists in the field of choice. Craig Criddle is a professor of environmental engineering and science at Stanford University.

The book has 12 chapters, and like the other guides it covers a history of the subject, as well as a good overview of the subject, and there is a lot to cover with Chemistry. From the early days of alchemy, through the discover of the atom, through reactions, states of matter, solutions, acids and bases, thermodynamics and electrochemistry and finishing up with a chapter on organic chemistry, Criddle and Gonick try to give a little taste of everything to the reader.

This book serves well as an introduction, overview, history of the subject, or a refresher. This guide works well when combined with the Physics and Genetics guide, as there are certainly areas of crossover between the books. Because of the wide variety of topics contained in this book, if you are using it as an introduction, you may want to break it apart and use it to introduce a few topics, then spend some more in depth time on those topics, before moving on to some more sections of this book.