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The New Way Things Work Hardcover – October 26, 1998
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- Print length400 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Grade level7 - 9
- Lexile measure1180L
- Dimensions8.75 x 1.25 x 11.5 inches
- PublisherHMH Books for Young Readers
- Publication dateOctober 26, 1998
- ISBN-109780395938478
- ISBN-13978-0395938478
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The Way Things Work: Newly Revised EditionDavid MacaulayHardcover
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The New Way Things Work boasts a richly illustrated 80-page section that wrenches us all (including the curious, bumbling wooly mammoth who ambles along with the reader) into the digital age of modems, digital cameras, compact disks, bits, and bytes. Readers can glory in gears in "The Mechanics of Movement," investigate flying in "Harnessing the Elements," demystify the sound of music in "Working with Waves," marvel at magnetism in "Electricity & Automation," and examine e-mail in "The Digital Domain." An illustrated survey of significant inventions closes the book, along with a glossary of technical terms, and an index. What possible link could there be between zippers and plows, dentist drills and windmills? Parking meters and meat grinders, jumbo jets and jackhammers, remote control and rockets, electric guitars and egg beaters? Macaulay demystifies them all. (All ages) --Karin Snelson
From School Library Journal
Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Scientific American
Review
"Keep the book a secret from your kids for a while and study up on the explanations of questions you're anticipating. Let Macaulay make you look smarter than you think you are. The kids will certainly be impressed - and you'll be getting a real education in the bargain." The Los Angeles Times
"The Way Things Work is a superb achievement. It is a very handsome book, a fascinating collection of riddles and a sound educational accomplishment that, while explaining in words and pictures - mostly pictures - some of the mysteries of physics, makes you smile, and often laugh. The author is honest enough to say that the book was intended for children of all ages, and brilliant enough to make all its readers feel brighter than they ever thought they could be." The New York Times
"This is a work of mammoth imagination, energy, and humor. It justifies every critic's belief that information and entertainment are not mutually exclusive - good nonfiction is storytelling at its best." The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Starred
"Combining the tongue-in-cheek observations of a budding prehistoric engineer with acute descriptions of the functioning of mechanical and electrical machines, Macaulay has produced a superb volume.... Macaulay's unusual ability to focus, distill, organize, and convey information through his art has never been so impressively displayed." Horn Book, Starred
"An astonishing tour-de-force, three years in the making, by the architect-turned-author who has given us Cathedral and City...Large, clear, complete drawings...contain unexpected little details providing hours of enlightenment and discovery." Kirkus Reviews with Pointers
"A book to be treasured as both a browsing item and as a gold mine of reference information." School Library Journal, Starred
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Product details
- ASIN : 0395938473
- Publisher : HMH Books for Young Readers; Revised, Subsequent edition (October 26, 1998)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 400 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780395938478
- ISBN-13 : 978-0395938478
- Reading age : 4 - 10 years, from customers
- Lexile measure : 1180L
- Grade level : 7 - 9
- Item Weight : 3.5 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.75 x 1.25 x 11.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #58,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Teen & Young Adult Machinery & Tools
- #8 in Teen & Young Adult Physics
- #18,001 in Children's Books (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

David Macaulay is an award-winning author and illustrator whose books have sold millions of copies in the United States alone, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. Macaulay has garnered numerous awards including the Caldecott Medal and Honor Awards, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Christopher Award, an American Institute of Architects Medal, and the Washington Post–Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award. In 2006, he was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, given “to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations.” Superb design, magnificent illustrations, and clearly presented information distinguish all of his books. David Macaulay lives with his family in Vermont.
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...however, part of the reason why I've been going through this book so slowly, is due to some severe errors in the illustrations, leaving me to study them perhaps a bit too intensely, hoping -I- am the one not understanding things correctly, when in fact I am almost positive some of the illustrations are simply incorrect. One of them is impossible as a working machine the way it is written.
Here are two examples:
Page 23; there is a diagram of a complex lever system, using nail clippers as the example. I would argue that the handle is actually a FIRST class lever, just like the nail extractor shown on the previous page. However, the diagram of fulcrums, effort, and load suggest that the handle is actually a third-class lever. Well... maybe, depending on how you look at the system. If we focus solely on the handle, there is no doubt it would be considered a first-class lever, so with that in mind, I believe an explanation should be made about why Macaulay considers it a third-class lever, instead of a first-class one.
When you read/look at the diagram, you'll understand my point.
The second illustration I have a problem with, I don't believe there is any room for dispute over; page 38, a diagram of an analogue bicycle distance counter. The way that the system is drawn, it would simply either not work, or, it would work backwards, with the numbers going DOWN instead of increasing with distance. This is because the diagram shows a reduction gear within a gear ring, the gear ring being responsible for turning the first dial in the system. The illustration shows the reduction gear - which is within a gear ring; the gear ring being the part that moves the first dial - as moving in an OPPOSING direction as the gear ring. On the next page, there is a diagram of how a salad spinner works with the same principle, illustrating very clearly that a gear within gear ring will spin the SAME direction as the gear ring. A simple peek at a salad spinner will show what I'm talking about. Or, simply look at the diagram on page 39, which IS correct.
The way the distance counter is drawn, the machine would not work. If merely one extra gear was drawn between the reduction gear and the gear ring, it would reverse the directions of the force, and the system would work. As it's CURRENTLY drawn, however, the gear ring and the reduction ring would simply grind together, or the dials would run BACKWARDS, counting DOWN your distance instead of counting it UP, as it should.
I don't think I'm misunderstanding the illustration. If someone DOES think I do, by all means please comment on this review, as I would much prefer this to be an issue of me misunderstanding something, then the alternative, which is that the illustration is patently impossible.
Unfortunately, after thinking about this conundrum for about 2 days, I'm almost positive it's an incorrect illustration.
Now, I was a rather self-conscious child. Had I started reading this book, and not understood the illustration, I'd most likely think the book was over my head, and that I was not capable of understanding its contents. There are many precocious children out there who also suffer from low self-esteem, and are likely to undergo a similar interpretation; assuming THEY are the ones with the problem, and not the book.
...however, I TOTALLY recommend this book to anyone over the age of... probably 15 or so, unless the child is in AP/IB-program-type classes. This is a VERY complex book, and some of the explanations are not worded well, leaving the reader to study the illustrations intensely to understand the concepts involved, which brings me back to my main criticism of the book.
If I am wrong about these illustrations, please feel welcome to comment on this review. I would LOVE it to be the case that I am the one misunderstanding the illustration. BUT, I don't think that's the case.
Also, if someone knows how to contact Macaulay, that would also be a great reason to leave a comment on this review.
Thanks for reading this, and, I do hope you buy the book. The illustrations that are done correctly more than compensate for the ones that are done poorly/mistakenly, but it is something that I think is unforgivable from an editing standpoint, and could very well shut a child's interest for engineering right out. There's already a shortage of talented engineers in the world as it stands now, and I fear the inaccuracies in this book may add to the problem.
Lastly, I'll simply stress that this book is TOTALLY worth purchasing, but make sure that if bought for a child, you're there to explain the shlubs in editing the illustrations for publishing.
All the best, folks,
RJ
The first illustration even shows God busy creating the rotation of the earth. Then they go to the earth where wooly mammoths lived and pick up one to take us through the history of mechanics, machines, and the like. Dozens of movements in five sections: waves, electricity, automation, digital domain, and machines show us just how easy these things are to understand done in drawerings.
Just as in child's play, there is no seeming order to the arrangement of items in the book. For example here are a few pages next to each other: vacuum cleaners, aqualungs or oxygen tanks, the toilet tank, the water meter, dishwasher, spray nozzle, fire extinguisher. Are you seeing an order? Yes, so am I.
Flipping over a hundred pages, I find the jet engine, rocket engines, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, fallout, nuclear reactor. OK, a definite pattern. Another hundred pages show these topics: movie camera, movie projector, printing, paper making, printing plate, printing press, bookbinding. More discernible order and logical arrangement.
One last check: scanner, bits and bytes, flash memory, magnetic storage, microchip, processor, software. We know where we are and recognize the order--a computer and its parts.
This reviewer has a suggestion for the reader. Once you have this book in hand, take it home, take it out every night and read a comfortable number of pages. If you have a child, read one page, discuss it, put this one away and take out a night-night book to read. If this is just your book, read several pages. By the time you have finished the book, you will have added dozens of operating systems to the computer banks in your own brain, making your child and/or yourself an expert in the way things work.
Top reviews from other countries
・動力を伝達するもの
・熱や圧力を利用するもの
・光や音を扱うもの
・電気や磁気を利用するもの
・情報を伝達する(コンピュータ他)もの
その他、発明に関して数ページ、用語説明、索引などを含みます。
とにかく様々な分野の機械・道具(乗り物含む)が説明されてます。
絵本として眺めるだけでもOK。
楽しく読んでる内にいつの間にか技術関連の英文表現に親しめそうです。
やっぱり図があると説得力がありますね。
デザインとか芸術関連の書籍では普通なのかもしれませんが
一般人からみると、この本は図解と説明文の配置なども巧みで
アイデアと遊び心に満ちあふれています。
光の3原色の説明なんか、ホントにわかりやすい。
錠前の説明なんか、絶対にドロボーさんには読んでほしくないですね(笑)
コンピュータのハードウェア関連など
今の御時勢にはタイムリーな内容も含まれてますが
とにかく必要以上に掘り下げずに、「モノの働きの基本原理」を説明する事に重点がおかれてます。
これだけのまとまった資料、自力で拾い集めるのは不可能かも。
なお図解部分は全て手書きですが、ストーリー部分はラフに、技術的な部分は丁寧、と書き分けてあります。
さすが建築関連の本出してる著者です。建築って芸術的要素がやっぱりあるんですね
それにしてもやたらマンモスが登場するよなあ・・・・
The book is very thick and comprehensive and I don't think he really understands a lot of it - but he enjoys looking at the drawings and having sections read to him and dsicussing what is happening.
I think he is at the youngest age range of interest for this book - I think it would be more appreciated by 10-12 year olds and adults! (I have certainly learnt a lot from it). The book expalins how various machines and technology work. It covers simple levers first and moves on to more complex machines such as the combustion engine, electrical circuits, Tv's and rockets. The book has no photos it relies on delicately coloured line drawings and plans which work really well. A mammoth is often used in a section of the page to explain a principle (although my son is not keen on this). Each page is quite crowded with drawings and information - so it is really aimed at an older audience I think, it is also very thick so he has to look at it while lying on the ground.
I remember when first published (8-10 years ago??) it was a huge hit and you could buy a cd rom and project kit to make simple machines - sadly you can't now but the BBC when it still made morning TV education shows made a very nice cartoon series based on the book also called the way things work - which takes the mammoth storyline and has a herd on a little island populated by a village of people and explains the principles behind simple machines in ten minute episodes which is very suitable for young kids. My older children used to watch it and I found amazon can supply a DVD of the series on two discs. I ordered it and my son has really enjoyed watching them - I think it suits his age better than the book, but I am sure the book will be on his shelf for many years to come and be consulted hundreds of times.
It complements a beginning physics course as well for homeschoolers.
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 28, 2015
















