Hack Your Kitchen: Discover a World of Food Fun with Science Buddies ®

by Niki Ahrens

Young scientists will learn all about many different scientific principles and properties using everyday tools and ingredients from their own kitchens! Make a lemon volcano, flour craters, edible paper, and more with these hands-on science projects.

Genres: Childrens, Cookbooks

32 pages, Paperback

Published February 2, 2021

About the author

Birds and words. Naturalist educator and children's non-fiction author. Out birding or gardening.

Reviews

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title had me thinking this children's book would be about cooking, but it's really just science activities that mostly require on things you can find in your kitchen. There are 8 experiments and they're simple to do -- make a volcano with a lemon and baking soda, make craters by dropping objects in flour, make edible paper with rice flour (one of my favorites), make a really long straw by connecting plastic straws, make colorful "walking water" with paper towels, make a slushy by shaking juice with frozen salt water, make baked ice cream (baked Alaska) and make rock candy. Each one is well illustrated with colorful images that easily show the steps. Each one also tells the science behind the results, which I appreciate. In all, it's a fun and well illustrated book that's easy to replicate, though I wish there were more experiments.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

[menna hafez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Special thanks to NetGalley and Lerner publishing group for providing me with ARC.

I loved this book so much, science and cooking is perfect combination in the kitchen theses days, it made cooking so easy and save a lot of time that we need.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Hack Your Kitchen is a new food science tutorial and recipe guide in the Science Buddies series for young readers. Due out 2nd Feb 2021 from Lerner, it's 32 pages and will be available hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats. All formats have QR code access to extra material including tutorial videos, short articles, and other multimedia content.

This is an engaging and well written guide for young readers (~7-11 years) containing 8 kitchen science experiments illustrating basic materials science and chemistry activities. Each of the tutorials contains safety instructions, tips for adult helpers, tools and supplies, and step by step instructions. The layouts are logical and thought out, with questions for each student to answer themselves. The photography throughout as well as the graphics are clear and colorful. The extra content is well designed and leads to additional questions/answers for further exploration. The book itself is admittedly very short, but the extra online material fleshes the book out fairly well. The book includes a very short glossary and links list for further reading. The choice of human models in the book (while clearly consciously made with editorial considerations in mind) are refreshingly representative and include both boys and girls of a variety of ethnicities. Representation is important at all ages, and I like to see it in STEM books.

This would make a superlative selection for gift giving, home/remote e-schooling science lessons, classroom library, makers' groups, and similar.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes

[Opal Edgar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very short book, there is only 8 experiments to do with your kids in it. The experiments are good, particularly the volcano and edible paper one, this last one I had never seen. They are very well presented with great picture-by-picture lay out. You really want to do them with the kids, they are very easy to manage, clear to understand and children are excited about the whole process. There is a little paragraph about what science each experiment teaches, which is nice and encourages us to talk with our kids and get their thought on it.
While what is there is very high quality, the book still feels a little lacking, I think it could have done with more experiments.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a fun book. This one is filled with great kitchen experiments that kids will find a lot of fun. Some of these are even edible like a recipe for rock candy. Great suggestion for Christmas or Library shelves. Librarians in charge of makerspace programs should take notice of this book.

[Kate TerHaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well illustrated little book of science fun in the kitchen. Eight projects are well explained and illustrated. Great ideas for young kids. Wish there were more activities.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great full-color photos, exciting experiments, and clear instructions. There is also a glossary, resources for further learning, and a scannable QR code to access related digital content.

[Lcharlson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lemon volcano looks cool!

[What Angie Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have been busy recording our fun in the kitchen. My son and I used this book as a tool for our YouTube channel.

Watch for the videos at "This is Ryder" on YouTube.