Exploring the Elements: A Complete Guide to the Periodic Table

A New York Times 2020 Best Book of the Year

A Wall Street Journal 2020 Gift Guide Selection

This artful and accessible guide to the periodic table - the ultimate reference tool for scientists worldwide - names all 118 chemical elements and helps young readers understand the remarkable ways we have learned to use them.

Graphically stunning layouts feature each element's letter symbol and atomic number, exploring its attributes, characteristics, uses, and interesting stories behind its discovery. Complete with a comprehensive introduction, conclusion, and glossary, this is the perfect introduction to chemistry for inquisitive minds.

Wrapped in a double-sided jacket, with the illustrated periodic table printed on the underside, Exploring the Elements is jam-packed with 240 pages of information, including:

A comprehensive introduction explaining what elements are and the design and purpose of the periodic table

Each of the 118 elements is visually presented with its respective letter symbol and atomic number, as well as a map of where it’s located in the periodic table

Additional details showing where each element is found in the universe (from food on our plates to the center of a star), its unique properties, atomic diagram, secret chemistry, and working examples of how its’s used or changing the world

Plus an index, glossary and suggested reading and additional references and Resources

Both a gift book and a practical book, Exploring the Elements is for teachers and librarians, parents and grandparents, the home bookshelf and classroom bookshelf, science enthusiasts and budding scientists of all ages.

Award-winning art director and designer Sara Gillingham created Alpha Bravo Charlie, Boats Are Busy, Seeing Stars and Animals in the Sky with Phaidon. She lives in British Columbia.

Science writer and children's author Isabel Thomas is a winner of the AAAS/Subaru Children's Book Prize and has been shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People's Book Prize, the ASE Science Book of the Year, and the Blue Peter Book Awards.