This book looks like it tried too hard to be about astronomy. It takes reasonable experiments about basic scientific principles and tacks on explanations related to astronomy that ignore other factors (i.e. both reflectivity and distance from the sun are seperately listed as the reason a planet is hotter when Venus is neither the darkest nor the closest), are overly obscure, or just plain wrong (appearance of 'the man in the moon' caused by shadows).

I have worked in an astronomy museum for six years, and this book has me pausing to try and comprehend what the book is trying to do. I am not familiar with the other Janice VanCleave books, but I specifically recommend AGAINST this one.

As a mom who home-schools her kids, this book has been invaluable for keeping the fun and interest in teaching Astronomy. Janice VanCleave's book have been a great assest to our library.

I was very disappointed by the lack of information. The experiments (this book is entirely experiments - which I disliked) take a long time to set up. Even if they work (which they often don't), they will often only demonstarate a simple concept that could be explained in one paragraph. A complete waste of money. I would recomend "Physics the easy way" by Robert L. Lehrman (Barron's Educational Series, Inc.) over this book any day.

This book is just right for introducing physics concepts to children in the 8-12yrs. age range. My students prefer learning the concepts by "doing" rather than by just reading about them in a science text.

Looking for simple experiments which are always successful? Janice VanCleave's books provide just that approach. And 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizarre and Incredible Experiments adds to her large collection of published experiments. The title is misleading as the experiments are not very unusual. But the experiments are simple and most use readily-available materials. Good scientific explanations accompany each experiment. The book would benefit by some emphasis on the inquiry-approach to science and encouraging (rather than discouraging) changing variables during the experiments...The Science Spiders(TM) Newsletter.

I bought this book in hopes of finding a good science fair project that could "bring home the gold." But all that I found was a kids science book that showed you what happened to fruit-flies in the light and other stupid stuff like that. It was nowhere near what I expected in such a highly reffered book. If you are looking for a good science project for someone above the age of 10 I would not recomend this book!

~SammieG~ -shibby!

I picked up this book for my son in 6th grade after reading so many glorifying reviews about Van Cleave's books and the fact that she has so many books out there. Boy were we ever disappointed! These are not "science fair projects" that a student can use for doing a science fair project in grades 5 and up, rather, they are trite projects for little grade school children or kindergarteners. How can a project that asks the question "what are the parts of a fingernail" and for materials required lists only a magnifying glass for the so-called experiment which is consists of a student holding the magnifying glass over his/her fingernail to observe, how can this possibly be a "best" science fair project? How can this be any science fair project at all? Where is the hypothesis, what is the real experiment, how could a student enter this in a science fair? Don't waste your time with this one, I returned it for a refund.

I first saw this book in the library and decided I needed a copy of my own. I like it. I have two children in the age range targeted by this book - aged 12 and 10 - and a younger one I will use it with in the future.

We are using it in our classic-education style homeschool, and I find it a good tool for helping my children learn how to think, research their topic and write it all down. The book does not lay out every step of preparation for the projects, as previous reviewers may have expected, rather it gives a good basic and practical overview of the scientific method, and fifty topic ideas to spark the imagination of the child. It is not geared to the highschooler - VanCleave has other books that are for that purpose. The child still has to do the work themselves in putting the project together, and to my mind that is a large part of the value of the book. My children learn far more from their own research and experimentation than they do from following steps and copying the research of others. There were ideas in this book that I would like to try!

I looked at this book when i was searching for a science project. I tried to do the one project on diffusion on water molecules, but it didnt work!!!! I ended up using a project from another book. I do not reccommend this book. If anyone wants to do a project that does not work, buy the book.