Why Is Snot Green?: And Other Extremely Important Questions (and Answers)

by Glenn Murphy

Book Overview

PREPARE TO LAUGH AND LEARN

Scientific answers to mysteries kids really want to know.

Sure a lot of kids want to grow up to be astronauts, but according to scientist Glenn Murphy, even MORE kids want to know what happens to astronaut farts. (Short answer: Not good things ) And they want to know: Why don't all fish die from lightening storms? Why haven't we all been sucked into a black hole? Do animals talk? Told in a back-and-forth...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596435003
• ISBN13: 9781596435001
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Square Fish
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Well received by young grandchildren

Our grandkids and their father loved this book - mother wasn't too certain about the book because of its title but was surprised when she had a chance to look at it. The perfect gift for inquisitive grandchildrn and a great way to hook them into reading.

Making Science Fun

"Why is Snot Green" is great book because it makes science fun. This book allows the reader (both young and old) to learn without the monotony of a typical science book. Targeted towards the interests of young scientists, this book allows children to learn about science in a entertaining way. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about science without the drudgery of a traditional text book.

Good questions -- great answers

This book was fun, fact-filled, and a real delight to read, even for me. Once the author opened his topics, he tracked down all the related juicy stuff I wish I'd been creative enough to ask when I was a kid. Silly -- but TOTALLY smart.

This book rules

The book is really funny. Encourages kids to ask, and digg into science. Glenn Murphy is the man!

Online reviews of Why Is Snot Green?

Link to the sequel, How Loud Can You Burp? How Loud Can You Burp? (Science Museum Q & a Book) Review from CultureSquad.wordpress.com: This book takes the funny sides of things; I find it difficult to imagine a humoristic science book, but this one is perfect. The book is split into two: the explainer and the reader. The explainer... um... explains everything, and the `reader' asks questions in the same way as the reader would. So the book is extremely informal. There are five sections to the book: `Lost in Space', `The Angry Planet', `Animal Answers', `Being Human' and `Fantastic Futures'. They are all split into questions, such as `Why is Snot Green', and the reader is engaged into `asking' the questions. Most of the questions are really funny and both the explainer and reader could be comics. Despite no colour, there are pictures and diagrams to help the reader through the book (the real one). So, I give this book a 9/10. Review from thebookbag.co.uk Go on. You don't know, do you? Why is snot green? I'll tell you. Snot is green because it contains a special bacteria-busting protein which itself contains a form of iron that reflects green light and absorbs all other colours. Wasabi, the Japanese sauce, contains the same protein. That's why it's green, too. Hold that thought. Dried snot - you know, the bogeys that you pick and stick on the wall to drive your mother mad - isn't green because once it leaves the body and the air begins to dry it out, the cells in the snot containing the proteins - phagocytes - die and the green colour disappears. Do rabbits fart? Well, almost. If, by fart, you mean 'release gas from the gut' then all animals with guts will, in fact, fart. Insects, fish, lizards, cats, dogs, mice, elephants... almost any creature you can think of. In fact, the only ones that don't fart are those that didn't evolve guts - like sponges, jellyfish and some types of worm. This whole farting thing gets quite interesting, actually. Apparently, termites are the top farters on Earth. The combined farts of termites produce more methane - a greenhouse gas, in case you didn't know - than cars, planes and factories all put together. Cattle burps have a pretty shocking effect on global warming too. These are just two of the almost two hundred questions answered in Why Is Snot Green? by the Science Museum's head of communications, Glenn Murphy. Thankfully, they're not all concerned with bodily functions and gruesomeness. They're neatly arranged into five sections - about space, about the planet, about animals, about humans and about the future. It covers many of the topics children will come across in Key Stage Two science, but it isn't geared to providing answers for the dreaded SATS tests; it's geared to providing interesting and inspirational context to the broad topics they're covering at school. It does that, and then some. I found the sections about humans and animals most interesting - and I actua