How Mountains Are Made

by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

Book Overview

29,028 feet tall and still growing? Even though Mount Everest measures 29,028 feet high, it may be growing about two inches a year. A mountain might be thousands of feet high, but it can still grow taller or shorter each year. Mountains are created when the huge plates that make up the earth's outer shell very slowly pull and push against one another. Read and find out about all the different kinds of mountains.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064451283
• ISBN13: 9780064451284
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 7.6" x 10.4"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

Basic Beginnings for Early Explorers

I am certainly not an Earth Scientist, but I can say that this book proves to be an excellent starting point for young children to grasp the basic understanding that the Earth itself is a lot more complex than one can see on the surface. The beginning story-line of children setting out for a mountain hike captures a child's interest from the start. The illustrations are imaginative and capture the wonder of God's creation beautifully. The boook covers some basic concepts such as how the trees begin to thin out and get smaller as the climb gets steeper. They even mention how they can see the top of the mountain but that it seems to take "forever" to get there. This helps the educator explain the concept of perspective. The book mentions 4 main theories about mountain formation: 1. Folded 2. Dome 3. Fault-Block 4. Volcanic A child is introduced to fossils and erosion. They learn the term Lithosphere and see a simple diagram of such. Then there is a follow-up diagram of the Lithosphere, the Magma, and Rocky Mantle. While I appreciate the scientist's concern about the acuracy of the information, I find that this provides a good starting point for children to learn and understand some basic concepts about what might be going on inside of the Earth. NOTE: Depending on your view of the age of the earth, you may like to know that this book utilizes millions of years in its descriptions.

Excellent Book!

Delightful! "How Mountains Are Made" makes an excellent supplement to any elementary-school earth science unit. Its good-humored, user-friendly pages engage classes' attention and stimulate the students to ask questions. A clear, accurate, and accessible introduction to a complex subject - this will certainly put budding young geologists on firm footing. A wonderful addition to the venerable "Let's Read and Find Out Science" series!

Accurately presents current theory

This book pretty accurately presents a simplified version of the current theory on mountain formation. According to the UC Berkeley department of Geology, the asthenosphere is fluid: "These observations, along with many other studies of our planet, support the theory that underneath the Earth's crust (the lithosphere: a solid array of plates) is a malleable layer of heated rock known as the asthenosphere which is heated by radioactive decay of elements such as Uranium, Thorium, and Potassium. Because the radioactive source of heat is deep within the mantle, the fluid asthenosphere circulates as convection currents underneath the solid lithosphere."