Junk Food (Where's the Science Here?)

*Starred Review* Gr. 3-5. Cobb's cleverly conceived new series, Where's the Science Here?, focuses on food chemistry, not nutrition, in examinations of six seductive snack foods (popcorn, corn chips, chocolate, candy, potato chips, and soda). Well-digested explanations and low-tech projects reinforce Cobb's reputation for snappy hands-on science writing for children, who will eagerly toss a diet soda into a tub with a regular one to confirm that the diet variety always floats higher, or snip a hole in a new bag of potato chips to see how the nitrogen inside, used to keep the chips fresh, can snuff out a candle. Apart from some inconsistencies between captions and photographs, Gold's photos stand well above those in most nonfiction science series and directly support Cobb's intentions in a way that generic stock images can't match.