Scene of the Crime: Tracking Down Criminals with Forensic Science - Hardcover

Newquist, HP

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0451476468 ISBN 13: 9780451476463

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2021

Synopsis

Learn about the history of forensic science, how to collect and analyze evidence, and get one step closer to being a world-class, crime-solving detective!

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of Chocolate, The Human Body, and From Here to There, comes an all new nonfiction deep dive into forensic science. What is evidence and how do investigators gather it? How do you determine how long a body has been dead? Do fingerprints differ from person to person? How did some of the world's great fictional detectives, like Sherlock Holmes, further the study of forensics? Packed with lively photos, classroom activities, and engaging prose, budding private eyes and scientists will be eager to find the answers to these and other questions in HP Newquist's latest, and to learn about everything from the world's first autopsy in Ancient Rome to the role that DNA plays in solving crimes along the way.

About this title

About the Author

HP Newquist is the author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, including Invention & Impact: The Human Body (Viking-Smithsonian); The Book of Chocolate (Viking Children's Books), The Book of Blood, a National Science Teachers Association Outstanding Science Book of the Year; the critically acclaimed The Great Brain Book, an NSTA and Children's Book Council Outstanding Science Book of the Year; and For Boys Only, an American Library Association "Quick Pick" and New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age, among others. His hundreds of magazine articles have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Popular Science.

Reviews

Gr 6 Up—Forensic science has been a pop culture darling for some time, whether through television dramas, true crime books, or movies. This book provides teens the science that informs those scenes. Newquist presents a compulsively readable narrative of the evolution of cracking cases. The main lens of the book is the science that decodes a crime scene. However, readers who come for the crime will stay for the history, as the book begins at the dawn of civilization; crime is as old as humans. Centuries of advancements in law, science, policing, media, and medicine are covered comprehensively yet economically in a digestible 150 pages of text. The book is printed in full color and the core narrative is well supplemented by photographs, illustrations, and colored boxes of text containing information like vocabulary words, additional concept explanations, or easy-to-replicate forensic science activities (hands-on experiments with titles like Bite Marks, Fingerprints, and Blood Spatter Analysis) that can be done at home or in a classroom. VERDICT A recommended scientific foundation for a YA audience interested in crime dramas and true crime that could easily coincide with lessons from a wide range of subjects.—Lindsay Jensen, Nashville P.L.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451476468
• ISBN 13: 9780451476463
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192