Quarks, Dark Matter, Nebulae and More - Cosmology for Kids - Children's Cosmology Books

This book is not worth the paper it is printed on. Before I go further into my critique of this book, I'd like to state my credentials for reference. I have a Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics with over 15 years of research experience. I also have over three years of personal experience in publishing—not to mention being the author of dozens of papers in peer-reviewed journals. With this in mind, I urge fellow parents to avoid this book.I will group my objections to this books into three categories. First and most importantly, this supposed to be a science book and it contains factually incorrect statements. For example, the book states in several places that dark matter is responsible for keeping the earth in its orbit around the sun. This assertion is false. Dark matter is either a ghostly form of matter that permeates the cosmos or it is an artifact of our lack of understanding of how gravity works at galactic scales. In either case, best estimates suggest a negligible amount of dark matter is present in our solar system and therefore has no measurable influence on the orbit of the earth around the sun. The book also claims that quarks cannot be observed or measured. If that is the case, there are a number of Nobel prizes that need to be recalled.So far I have covered two of the tree topics from the title: quarks and dark matter. Nebulae, the book's third topic, brings me to my second grievance. This is supposed to be a children's book and yet there are no illustrations. Most of the pages are simply filled with text. There are images on some of the pages—two baffling, incomprehensible drawings and a couple of stock astronomy photographs—but none of them are referenced in the text, nor do any of them illustrate a concept from the text. And without illustrations, it's difficult to relate anything in the book to the world around us.The book approaches relevancy with an ameture stock photo of the Orion Nebula—but, again, there is no reference to it in the text. This is a big missed opportunity for the book. Nebulae, in general, are the only objects in the book that can be observed in the world around us without instruments. The Orion Nebula in particular is one of the only nebulae that can be seen with the naked eye. With a simple statement on how to find the nebula (it is the middle "star" in the sword on Orion's belt), the book could be transformed from an unrelatable academic discussion (just the type of thing to turn kids off from science) into field guide to backyard astronomy. As it is—at best—it leaves the reader saying, "We'll look that up later..."My final complaint about the book is that it is simply poorly written. It seems like the book was either poorly translated or poorly edited. The following sentences are particularly outstanding: "How do nebulae look like?"; "They are not subjects for observation."; and "Normal matters can be studied using the available technology."My son has an inspiring interest in cosmology. I wanted to foster this interest by finding an entertaining book about space written for children. Imagine my excitement when I found a book with "Cosmology for Kids" in the title! I wanted this book to be amazing, but I would have settled for just OK. But instead of simply being substandard, this book is actually damaging. In the brief span of a few short pages it is filled with false, incorrect, and misleading statements. If that wasn't bad enough (and it is) the presentation is dull as dirt. Who writes a children's science book without illustrations? Instead of kindling the flame of curiosity, this book snuffs it out with it's unengaging and lackluster presentation.