While I am talking about my favorites, I would like to mention the Story of Science series by Joy Hakim.  I have enjoyed teaching these books to my children.  Last year, we were doing the first one as we studied Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and the beginning of the Dark Ages. These books coincided with what we were studying in history, our trip to Greece, and the books August Caesar's World, Galen the Medicine Man and some others we read last year.

This year we are doing the second one and it's just as good.  My Mom had given my son a box of over 100 experiments, called Milestones in Science.  Most of the experiments are a way to practically apply what we are learning.  We just read Along Came Galileo and now we are reading Mystery of the Periodic Table.  I like the way these books continue to examine the people we read about in the first of Hakim's Story of Science as well as introducing to new characters as she does.

A few years ago, I had read in the USA Today about the books Joy Hakim had written that caused students to keep their textbooks, unwilling to give them back to the school system because they enjoyed them so much.  They gave a few excerpts - one about Fahrenheit, in particular, that I remember.  For the next two years, I searched for the book about Fahrenheit because the excerpt started out so interesting.  He was running away from the police at the beginning of her paragraph about him.  I knew it would entertain my children as well as be informative.  The other day, I discovered it is the textbook I had bought, the second Story of Science, and I had it all along.  I hope they will find it entertaining when we get to that part.  They love her science books and ask me to keep reading.