Car Science: An Under-the-Hood, Behind-the-Dash Look at How Cars Work

my husband is a car enthusiast. he enjoys tinkering and rebuilding them. my nephew who is 4 has been obsessed with cars since he was old enough to talk. his other obsession is books and reading.my husband doesn't pay any attention to age appropriateness when it comes to toys and gifts for our nephews I guess because he assumes they are just as smart and curious as we were at their age?? anyway, he saw this book and bought it for my nephew. I know this book is intended for 7 years and up but my 4 year old nephew loves this book. there are plenty of pictures in the book and he does like those but he knows how to read and while he may not fully understand the entire concept yet of how engines and transmissions work he can follow along with the concepts loosely and he can explain it back to you. this is now his new favorite book.

Helped on of my students finally read for fun!

Leave it to DK Publishing (of Eyewitness Books fame) to create something this cool! Yes, it's the one boys ages 7-13 have been waiting for: a reader-friendly book about cars.Car Science is divided into four sections. The first is Power. My favorite spread in this section is "Making gasoline," but the part about gears is also fascinating, as is "Bugatti Veyron," about a car with 1001-brake horsepower, which means it can go from 249 mph to a stop in under 10 seconds.Section 2 is Speed. It begins with a colorful chart comparing the speeds of different animals and vehicles, from a snail's .03 mph to the Thrust SSC's land-speed record of 763 mph. I also liked finding out how something as odd as a boxfish could give designers an idea for the shape of a car in "Inspired by Nature."Section 3 addresses Handling. My favorite spread title here is "Wall of Death," with "Monster Trucks" and "Car-crash Science" tied for second.Section 4, Technology, starts off by explaining what cars are made of, moving on to topics like scuba cars before ending happily with "Top 10 Crazy Ideas."Car Science is written at about a 3rd grade level, but its appeal is much broader. The book serves as an alluring introduction to understanding how cars work. My only request is that someone now write a book explaining cars and their engines in more detail, perhaps at a 6th-8th grade level. (The next one "up" I found was for high schoolers and adults.) In the meantime, boys--and girls--should take a look at this fast, shiny sports car of a book. VROOM! VROOM!

It's got a lot of facts in it and pictures too. It's pretty educational and fun.

Based on reviews, I bought this book for my car/truck/any vehicle-obsessed five year old grandson. However, he had little interest in the early part of the book, but liked the photos of vehicles in the back half of the book—at this time. This is a book made more for the 8+ readship, I think, but as another reviewer has said, the younger ones may like looking at the pictures best.

We are loving this book so far. I have a five year old son who LOVES cars and engines and gears. He does not necessarily love reading, but he loves this book. It’s a pretty long book and tackles some pretty complex topics about cars, but does it very well. My husband is the car person in our family, so I am learning along with my sons and really enjoying how the book is put together. Even my 3-year-old enjoys the book. I recommend to anyone with a car-loving child!UPDATE: One year later and this is still the go to book for my son. I'm guessing it will continue to be the favorite for many years.

I bought this for my 6 year old son. While some of the concepts and reading is above his level, he absolutely loves paging through it. One of the things that I really like about it is Car Science is a book that has everything from the physics, chemistry, mechanics.... literally everything about cars, why cars work, or where gas comes from, etc.. It is well worth what I paid for it, and even my 8 year old who is a bit more advanced loves it for explaining things such as how ignition or an engine works. I would definitely recommend this for any mom of boys.

I gave this book a quick flip through and was impressed by the amount of information that it contains. I think anyone who might have an interest in cars and how they work, from curious eight year olds to adults, would benefit from reading it. There is a lot of text mixed with colorful illustrations on each page.