A Ray of Light: A Book of Science and Wonder. By Walter Wick.
Scholastic. $17.99.
A gorgeously photographed book that makes
science come alive with beauty and elegance – but that is marred by frequent,
frustrating writing errors – Walter Wick’s A
Ray of Light shows both the author’s remarkable photographic skill and
flair for picture-book creation, and his need for much-improved editing or a
collaborative writer. The beauties of the book abound, and are so many that
very young readers can be captured and captivated by the pictures without
necessarily wanting to pay much attention to the text. But the text is the
reason for the photos, and it does not bode well for the writing when Wick
already makes an error in his Acknowledgments: “I would also like to thank high
school physics teachers Peter Moore and Joe Mancino for their experience-based
wisdom and enthusiasm for the project from the very beginning; and to [thank]
Bill Robertson, Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Middle Tennessee State
University…” Yes, Wick forgets to thank while giving thanks.
Few readers will likely care much about
the Acknowledgments, but the very first sentence of the book itself shows that
Wick has trouble with text: “Everything from the earth beneath our feet, [to]
the water we drink, and the air we breathe is made of atoms.” The punctuation
could be better, and the omission of that little “to” starts the verbiage in
confusion – a real shame, since the words go with a photo that marvelously
juxtaposes three stacked rocks with a beaker filled with water and a dish from
which vapor is rising. The picture is striking and beautifully balanced, and
leads naturally into Wick’s discussion of the difference between matter and
energy, in which he aptly notes, “Although light is neither a solid, liquid,
nor gas, all three kinds of matter can have a role in its creation.”
Wick next moves into a brief discussion of
incandescence (“light that comes from heat”), then illustrates light waves with
some of his most compelling photos: beneath shots of a ball attached to a rod,
vibrating at three different speeds so it produces visible waves in water, he
shows the colors red, green and blue, explaining that the invisible waves of
light create colors in a parallel manner. Followup pages show what happens when
light enters a clear, water-filled box head on – compared with what happens
when it enters at an angle and is refracted. This leads to a discussion of the
color spectrum – and another of the periodic textual irritations: “It should be
noted that a photograph, especially those [it should be “one,” or “photographs,
especially those”] reproduced in a book, cannot fully capture the purity and
intensity of color…”
A
Ray of Light contains much that is fascinating, even revelatory. One page
shows a sort of Venn diagram of red, green and blue, explaining that even though
red and green paint make brown, red
and green light make bright yellow.
This leads to an explanation, with still more excellent photos, of the way the
color gray results from mixing equal amounts of red, green and blue or cyan,
magenta and yellow – and that adjusting the balance of gray’s component colors
produces all the colors in the book.
Again and again, Wick’s photos wonderfully
illustrate scientific concepts involving light, while his text stumbles along
with greater or lesser effectiveness. In a page on iridescence, for instance,
he writes, “If the double reflection of wave crests of any given wavelength
perfectly align [it should be “aligns”], that wavelength’s color brightens.”
Yet the book’s charm and informational
quality transcend its verbal blunders. When Wick moves into a discussion and
visual presentation of permanent colors – from pigments and dyes – his
illustrations make the science come fully alive. He next discuses lenses,
unfortunately again with some verbal confusion when writing about sunlight:
“Streaming in a window, you’ll feel its warmth” – which would mean you, the
reader, are streaming in the window; he intends to say, “When sunlight streams
in a window.” Yet again, photos rescue the text, showing how lenses work and
explaining that the human eye refracts light the same way simple lenses, such
as magnifying glasses, do. Pictures also carry the day in discussing
atmospheric light (with a neat explanation of why the sky is blue), showing the
relative sizes of Earth and our moon and Earth and the sun, and explaining how
sunlight is used to solve the mystery of what the sun is made of. A Ray of Light concludes with two dense,
small-type pages giving greater detail on the science behind the book, and they
will be welcome further reading for adults who go through the book with
children – and for children who become fascinated by science thanks to Wick’s
outstanding visualizations. Although it is a shame that Wick’s text does not
measure up to the quality of his photographs, it is still wonderful to have A Ray of Light to capture young readers’
imagination in much the same way that, back in 1997, Wick’s A Drop of Water exposed young people to
the wonders of a substance that only seems commonplace until you start
examining it closely. Light is not a “substance” in the same sense as water,
but it too is something we take for granted – until Wick shows, again and
again, what a marvel it really is.
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