[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.]
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Sometimes studying can be boring. Maybe the subject matter is difficult. Maybe there are no visual aids. Maybe there is no humor to keep your interest. Mammoth Science solves all of these problems. David Macaulay has written science and engineering books for decades and he makes them incredibly interesting and informative. Every page of this book is full of explanations of scientific concepts…illustrated using cartoon mammoths and shrews (large mice).
Mammoth Science introduces a wide variety of topics, from basic science like states of matter, to biology, light, earth and space. Each topic is explained across two pages with lots of visual aids and simple English. It does not cover as much detail as the Everything You Need to Ace… series of books (also introduced in the EL bookshelf blog), but it is a good introduction to the English vocabulary for science topics you are already familiar with. This is another really good way to practice “learning what you already know” – using knowledge of science in Japanese to make reading and understanding the English text must easier.
My two cents: Because each topic is covered on just a page or two, this is an excellent book for making an “English habit”: three topics a week, and you will cover a lot of ground before you even know it.
