Book Review: How To Make a Planet: A Step-By-Step Guide to Building the Earth by Scott Forbes

How To Make a Planet: A Step-By-Step Guide to Building the Earth by Scott Forbes is a book that describes the scientific theories of how the earth was formed. The book does a great job of talking the details of how our planet was formed with the basic building blocks of protons and neutrons and became the life sustaining place where we were all born. Forbes does a wonderful job of taking huge and abstract idea understandable.

How to Make a Planet begins with a timeline that easily shows how little time we have spent on our planet, and how long it took to get Earth to how it looks today. The books goes step by step through the history of our planet, and offers time checks through the book to show where each event of change took place in the larger scheme of things. The pictures and graphics are wonderful, and are worth exploring in their own right, even as they help drive home the information.  Information about weather, the water cycle, the atmosphere, and more are included in the book, which I find helps readers of all ages to see how interdependent the aspects of our world are, and how easy it would be to destroy out planet my ignoring the effects we can have on it.

I would highly recommend How to Make a Planet for middle grade students as well as libraries, The book would be a great resource in science classes and for homeschooling, since it offers well organized information in a way that inspires awe and further exploration.