Cover Reveal: Everything You Need to Ace Chemistry

I’m so excited to reveal the cover for the newest entry into the Big Fat Notebook series:  EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO ACE CHEMISTRY IN ONE BIG FAT NOTEBOOK, by MUF and STEMTuesday contributor and National Science Teacher Award-winner Jen Swanson.

Got Chemistry?

Chemistry is one of the most feared subjects in high school, but fortunately, Jen has broken down this daunting subject into accessible and memorable units, from how to conduct an experiment to the Laws of Thermodynamics.

About the process of writing a book on Chemistry, Swanson told MUF,  “I love learning about how things react and why. As a kid, I went through 5 or more chemistry sets. In fact, we found a few, many years later, still stuck under my bed (good thing all of the chemicals were inert). But for me, the excitement is in the discovery of how things interact. That is also why I probably loved cooking as a kid. Chemistry and cooking are basically the same thing.”

About the Big Fat Notebook Series

CHEMISTRY is one of two new high school entries in the popular series; all five of the other entries are written for middle school readers. All books are organized by key concepts, summarized in easy-to-understand language. Important ideas are highlighted in marker colors, all definitions are explained, and illustrations help describe some of the more complicated ideas.

The books meet  Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and state history standards, and are vetted by National and State Teacher of the Year Award-winning teachers.

Writing About Chemistry

About writing this book, Swanson says, “Chemistry is a much more difficult science to learn. There are so many different concepts. The trick is to mimic the curriculum to make sure that you’ve set a good base knowledge before moving forward. For example, readers must know and understand the periodic table and the hows and whys chemicals are located there, ie.  the groups (the vertical columns) and periods (the horizontal columns) before you can really talk about how two chemicals will react with each other. While most of science works from this idea, in chemistry it is much more important. If students don’t understand the chemical make-up of an element, say Oxygen, then they can’t predict how it will interact with other elements … it was challenging to write this book. Mostly because I took chemistry over well, let’s just say a LONG time ago in college.”

((Want to read other STEM books by Jen Swanson? Check out this interview here about another one of her cover reveals.))

Cover Reveal

And at last … drum roll… we reveal the cover for EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO ACE CHEMISTRY IN ONE BIG FAT NOTEBOOK. Ta-da!

You can buy the book on Amazon or on Bookshop.org

About Jen Swanson

Science ROCKS! And so, do Jennifer Swanson’s books. A self-professed science geek, Jennifer is the award-winning author of more than 40 books for children, mostly about STEM. She is also the creator and administrator of the Mixed Up Files own STEM Tuesday blog, and the creator of STEAMTeam2020. You can learn more about Jennifer at her website, www.JenniferSwansonBooks.com

Don’t forget to check out her NEW STEM podcast starting in May 2020!

Heather Murphy Capps

Heather Murphy Capps has always had a deep appreciation for comfort and elegance. She and Claudia would have run out of money quickly together but would absolutely have been on the same page about taxis and nice restaurants. And of course, solving mysteries about beautiful art. That said, Heather also appreciates Jamie’s love of complication, which is why she spent several years living in rural Kenya and then became a television news reporter, which involved standing for hours in the middle of hurricanes and political battles. Now she’s raising middle-grade readers and writing for them. She loves to read and write books with lots of great science, magic, mystery, and adventure. Heather is the communications coordinator for Mixed-Up Files, as well as creator/curator for our We Need Diverse MG series. She is committed to creating more diversity in publishing.