From School Library Journal Gr 6 Up—Young British YouTuber McDonnell has moved into the world of publishing, tackling astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics in a conversational style. Cartoonlike illustrations accompany most pages, anthropomorphizing, for example, different types of dwarf and supergiant stars with mustaches, sunglasses, grins, and grimaces. McDonnell inserts his own thoughts and asides into the text and keeps it light with hashtags such as #notallbacteria (in reference to "good" vs. harmful bacteria). Yet the humorous tone in no way takes away from the science as major and complex topics (string theory) are well covered. Clearly, McDonnell knows his stuff, and much of the content is quite comprehensive. However, the back matter is rather limited. As the author states in the introduction, he's not a scientist but a scientific communicator, mentioning a great scientific communicator of the 20th century, Carl Sagan. VERDICT McDonnell may not be Sagan, but for 21st-century teens, this is a solid and entertaining read.—Jenny Berggren, Longfellow Middle School, Berkeley, CA Read more Review "it's easy to be carried along by the jokes only to real­ize several pages in that you're learning a ton. A science lover will like this, but a lot of readers will become science lov­ers after starting here." - BookPage Read more P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); About the Author Charlie McDonnell began vlogging in 2013 under the handle Charlieissocoollike and was the first vlogger to reach 1 million YouTube subscribers. Charlie now has 2.4 million YouTube subscribers and 690,000 Twitter followers. Charlie often attends VidCon and other US vlogger events. Read more See more
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