When this book showed up on my doorstep, I dove in immediately. I was so excited to learn more about being a crime scene detective. Written for 8-13 year olds, this book is well presented with lots of photographs and information that is easy to understand. The cases are not overly complicated and contain fairly easy to decipher clues for younger readers.
The cases are: robbery, arson, forgery and murder. Parents or kids don't have to worry about the book being too gory. Well, I guess, it depends on how squeamish you are, but I didn't think there was anything in the book to get grossed out over.
Besides the four cases to solve, the book contains lots of do-it-yourself activities, like revealing fingerprints, testing chemical characteristics, making a cast of your shoeprint, revealing secret messages and others. All of these have instructions on how to do it with commonly found items. While it isn't exactly how real crime scene investigators perform these tasks, I think the activities will give the reader a better understanding of the science and procedures behind it all.
There are a few warnings regarding safety at the beginning of the book. Parents and children should heed them.
The only trouble I had is that I misplaced my magnifying glass and had trouble clearly seeing the fingerprints. These old eyes don't see as well as they used to. ;)
The book also contains a table of contents, a glossary and an index. All of them are adequate for this type of book.
Highly recommended for budding police officers, criminalists and those who want to know more about the forensic sciences.
For more information about this book, please visit DK's website.
I'd like to thank Chris at DK Canada for this review copy.
Crime Scene Detective by by Author, DK (Dorling Kindersley), ©2007. ISBN 9780756651558(Paperback), 72p.
This sounds like a modern-day Encyclopedia Brown. I'm sending some books to my nieces/nephews this summer - think I'll look for this one to add.
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