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Adam's Atomic Adventures
Adam is having a miserable day. First, he causes his team to lose the soccer game, and then he gets teased for being the shortest boy in the fifth grade. Just when Adam thinks nothing else can possibly go wrong, Mrs. Gold, his rather peculiar science teacher, makes him stay behind after class. Adam's day goes from bad to just plain weird when Mrs. Gold shares with him a startling she's much more than a science teacher-Mrs. Gold is a powerful alchemist who's counting on Adam's help to save the world! Mrs. Gold has chosen Adam, one of her best students, for a critical task. She plans to shrink Adam down to the microscopic size of a single atom and send him to the Periodic School for the Elements to search for Ollie, a missing atom of oxygen. Without Ollie, the planet's supply of oxygen will vanish. As Mrs. Gold produces the philosopher's stone, the secret magical tool of alchemists, Adam is suddenly thrust into the bizarre and treacherous realm of chemical elements. He must take advantage of his scientific knowledge to find Ollie before it's too late. Join Adam on a fascinating journey filled with fun and fantasy as he fights to defend the world from elemental disaster in Adam's Atomic Adventures.
- GenresScience
72 pages, Paperback
First published October 18, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 26, 2020
Read for Build Your Library homeschool curriculum. This was a great chemistry adventure in the Periodic School of Elements. We learned a lot about chemistry while enjoying a well-written story. The cover is truly awful, but the story was really good.
April 13, 2018
Adam is an elementary aged boy who one day finds out that he must go on a mission to the "Periodic School for the Elements" to find Ollie, the missing Oxygen atom and bring him back to his classroom and save the world!
We were reading this book as a part of chemistry for my 4th graders homeschool lessons. I thought that it was a fun companion book to learning about the periodic table and the elements. There are not a lot of elements that the author goes over, but the ones that she does she tells it in a fun story to make you remember some stuff about the elements. The book is really short and can be finished quickly (we spread it out over two weeks). Today we finished the book and I heard my son reciting one of the lines, which had Mendeleev's name it and it makes me excited that he finally remembers that name!
We were reading this book as a part of chemistry for my 4th graders homeschool lessons. I thought that it was a fun companion book to learning about the periodic table and the elements. There are not a lot of elements that the author goes over, but the ones that she does she tells it in a fun story to make you remember some stuff about the elements. The book is really short and can be finished quickly (we spread it out over two weeks). Today we finished the book and I heard my son reciting one of the lines, which had Mendeleev's name it and it makes me excited that he finally remembers that name!
May 27, 2026
The kids and I did not enjoy this book very much at all. It doesn’t make any sense! What is stuff made of at the school if not for atoms? How is he the size of an atom yet they are in classrooms? How is there air there? These are the questions my children asked while reading this.
For me, there were too many filler words and phrases that repeat over and over throughout the book. Everything takes ten times longer than it needs to for such a simplistic plot. I got bored reading it. Every single conversation had more back and forth than it needed, I found myself leaving parts out just to speed it along. Also I did not like how Mrs. Gold approached a CHILD for help the way she did. Something I teach my kids to stay safe from predators is that an adult will never ask a child for help with something important— they will ask an adult. Mrs. Gold is super creepy and uses her power as a teacher over Adam to basically kidnap him into this other world. Incredibly creepy when you think about the implications and lessons it leaves children with.
Terrible book. It’s more fun to learn actual chemistry than to bother with this silly book that doesn’t ground chemistry into reality enough to help.
For me, there were too many filler words and phrases that repeat over and over throughout the book. Everything takes ten times longer than it needs to for such a simplistic plot. I got bored reading it. Every single conversation had more back and forth than it needed, I found myself leaving parts out just to speed it along. Also I did not like how Mrs. Gold approached a CHILD for help the way she did. Something I teach my kids to stay safe from predators is that an adult will never ask a child for help with something important— they will ask an adult. Mrs. Gold is super creepy and uses her power as a teacher over Adam to basically kidnap him into this other world. Incredibly creepy when you think about the implications and lessons it leaves children with.
Terrible book. It’s more fun to learn actual chemistry than to bother with this silly book that doesn’t ground chemistry into reality enough to help.
December 19, 2019
I read Adam's Atomic Adventures with my son as part of the Build Your Library homeschool curriculum for third grade. It was a short, imaginative introduction to the periodic table and other chemistry basics. My son really enjoyed it!
June 12, 2026
This was a really clever way to learn more about the periodic table. The kids really enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews