Judy Wearing

Discover the "most numerous organism on earth" in the bacteria volume of a nonfiction series about organisms. The first chapter describes bacteria in general, from what they eat, to where they're found, to how they divide and multiply. Each following chapter then describes in detail the different shapes of bacteria, including ones that students will easily recognize, like Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, and E. coli, and how they interact with other organisms (like humans) and the world at large. Pictures, including computer-generated and magnified images of real bacteria, charts, and graphs, cover about 50% of each page. Younger students will enjoy browsing these often gross-looking (and thus all the more appealing) pictures, but may not get much out of the text; light text on a dark background on nearly a quarter of the pages can be difficult to read. Still, the content, which is informative and engaging without being overwhelming, is strong enough overcome the visual issues of some pages. Recommended as a starting point for biology research for grades 5-8.… (mehr)