Use Your Brain

Use Your Brain (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science Books) This book starts with a basic physical description of the brain and nerves. The nerves are like telephone wires that carry messages to your brain from the other parts of your body. OK so far. A brief and uncharacteristically vague bit about what kind of info your brain keeps track of. This could use more specific details tho. But sometimes your brain doesn't work too well, when it is tired it slows down. Things go wrong, you make mistakes. OK good. But then... When people take drugs their brains work differently. Drugs slow down the messages and can blot out all messages. Strong drugs are like a storm that tears down the wires. Hmmm. OK info but I wasn't planning to take up this subject just yet, he's only 5. Then alcohol and what happens when a man gets drunk. Don't get me wrong, this is important information and at some point kids need to learn how drugs and alcohol can impair the brain. I love this series of books. They usually explore the subject thoroughly, and I appreciate that. But this particular book doesn't explain enough about the brain and how it works, how we remember, why some things become automatic, the messages carried to and from the brain. So when it goes into the drugs and alcohol it seems these subjects take center stage instead of being support to the rest of the info. This one is not my favorite because the information is too sketchy. It ends with something like "if you didn't have a brain you would be like a tomato. And a tomato doesn't know anything". That isn't very scientific. Ok it was written in 1971, that is practically the dark ages. Maybe they have an updated version out by now. If so I want that version.