How things work

by Ian Graham

Text and drawings explain the workings of certain everyday items including bicycles, traffic lights, and computers.

Genres: Science, Childrens

64 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

About the author

After working as an in-house journalist and editor in consumer electronics magazines, Ian Graham became a freelance writer. He has written more than 230 illustrated non-fiction books for children and teens, and contributed chapters to books including Dorling Kindersley’s Know it All and Big Ideas that Changed the World. He has a degree in applied physics and a postgraduate diploma in journalism.

Reviews

[Chris Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first remember reading parts of this book when I was about 10 years old. The colourful diagrams and pictures exposed me to a new level of understanding of the internal workings of many day to day household items.
The book contains sections on all kinds of complicated items, ranging from clocks and watches to nuclear power stations and alternative methods of generating power.
The diagrams are supported and explained by short paragraphs that explain what the diagrams and cross sections are displaying.
Whilst this book is still very interesting to read, much of what is shown and explained here is no longer as relevant as technology has moved forward a lot and this book was published in 1994.
However even in revisiting this book all these years later, I have found reading about machines and methods from the past to be very interesting and there is still much within this book that is worth reading even today.