There is a now decade old circulated picture of Mark Zuckerberg and his wife reading a book called “Quantum Physics for Babies” to their then newborn. Not the best advertisement for the book, as the baby appears to be asleep. In a recent conversation with New Yorker journalist Elise Broach I discussed what I consider some possible pros and cons of books like these that didactically present scientific concepts to babies. Check that conversation out here.
It’s been nearly two decades since my own daughter was a baby, but I do remember reading books about animals, trees, and water. Not as a baby, but not long after, we enjoyed books about physics like “How Machines Work: Zoo Break!” by David Macauley that introduces simple concepts like levers and pulleys through the story of zoo animals trying to escape. This book effectively taught scientific concepts in an engaging context with amazing illustrations in a hands on lift-the flap format that captured my daughter’s interest and made sense, developmentally. I also remember reading "One Grain of Rice” by Demi where the concept of exponential growth is introduced through a tale about a clever girl who asks for one grain of rice, doubled daily, leading to billions of grains over one month, requiring elephants to carry the delivery.
The first question I ask when considering if content is developmentally appropriate (meaning is it going to land and stick with a child?) is “what does the child already understand and is there something in the new content that builds from that current knowledge?” This learning concept, called iteration, is essential for new information to make sense. Like stair steps, we learn based on what we already know. Certainly vocabulary like “quarks” can be introduced and a young child may even repeat the word back eventually, but do they attribute meaning to the word? While it may seem like a fun party trick to have your toddler mention “atoms” and “cells” in casual conversation, it may also set them up to believe that there is no real connection between words and meaning. To assume it’s normal to not understand what they are reading in books and to miss the magic of pictures and words to communicate ideas and stories.
The next question I ask is “what’s the point?” If the true purpose of reading books on thermo-dynamics is to teach that concept, then it’s likely no book will succeed. It is simply not developmentally appropriate. However, if the point is to offer a prompt for some back and forth between an adult and a baby, what we call “serve and return”, and books on aerospace engineering for babies are more engaging for a grown up and result in more one-on-one time, some rhythmic and rhyming dialogue, and possibly more enthusiasm for both the reader and the child, then bring on Newton’s Laws! But let’s be sure there are also books in the mix that are more developmentally appropriate and allow for a child’s experience of meaning and the joy of story and lovable characters.
It’s important that we remember that even in most adult non-fiction, efforts are often made to get us to care about a character or the outcome. In “How Big is a Foot?” by Rolf Myller, my daughter and I rooted for the King who wished to surprise his Queen with a bed. He measures her using his own feet; only to find, heartbreakingly, the bed too short when the builder has much smaller feet. The book never mentions non-standard units of measurement, but when it came time to use Unifix cubes to measure and graph the height of seedlings in preschool, the lesson from the king was there to help.