Every year about this time I am asked by friends and colleagues to recommend good science books for kids, to fill the remaining hollows in Santa’s pack.
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W. W. Denslow illustration from "The Wonderful WIzard of Oz" (1900)
Photo by Edward Paterson on Unsplash
Night sky’s there for the giving
If Santa has telescopes in his sleigh this year, then he should toss in a few good star books too. Here’s why.
German postcard, ca. 1900 (Public Domain)
On the side of the angels
One of my earliest memories is of an angel.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Home is where the heart is
Remember this old riddle? A man leaves his house for a walk. He walks a mile due south, a mile due east, and a mile due north, and finds he is back at his house. What is the man’s name?
Photo by Tim de Groot on Unsplash
Universal peace
Forget for the moment that the actual year of Christ’s birth was probably sometime between 7 BC, when Augustus ordered a census of Judea, and 4 BC, when Herod died. Forget that the season of birth may have been spring, when shepherds watched their newborn lambs by night. Let’s focus on the traditional place and time, Bethlehem in Galilee, on the night of December 24 – 25 in the year 1 BC (as historians reckon).
Vintage Capsela construction toy from Japan • Photo by Adrian J. Hunter (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Toys the mind can play with
Time to take a look at this year’s science toys, and what better place to see what the elves have been up to than the Boston Science Museum Shop? I’m a long way from childhood, but I found lots of stuff I wouldn’t mind finding under my tree.
Detail from the Adoration of the Magi by Giotto
Giotto’s ‘star’
In the year 1303, Enrico Scrovegni, a businessman of Padua, Italy, commissioned the construction of a chapel, partly to expiate the sins of his father, a notorious money-lender assigned by the poet Dante to the seventh circle of Hell.
An early 20th century Erector Set • Photo by Jim Heaphy (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Dear Santa
I know it’s early to start thinking about next Christmas — this year’s celebrations are barely over — but I thought I should write while my thoughts are still fresh in my mind.
Photo by Inbal Malca on Unsplash
Gifts from a place called Arabia Felix
The gospel tells us that they came from the east, following a star. But if, as tradition insists, they arrived on camels, and if upon opening their treasures they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, then my guess is that they came from the south, from beyond the trackless wastes of the Empty Quarter, from the place called Arabia Felix.
Photo by Zunnoon Ahmed on Unsplash
The Grinch that stole mystery?
I have a friend who speaks of science as an island in a sea of mystery. It is a lovely image, and it seems to me an accurate one. We live in our partial knowledge of the world as the Dutch live on polders claimed from the sea. We dike and fill. We dredge up soil from the bed of mystery and build ourselves room to grow.