Sam over at GeekMom just posted a thoughtful and kind review, Bringing Science Home Again: ‘The Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory’.
This is exactly what was needed. So much of home-based experimentation right now is focused on technology and making. While there is nothing wrong with that, traditional sciences are just as important. Labs are important. The Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory brings the magic of science home again.
Home chemistry is a touchy subject nowadays, and quite dangerous. Not dangerous because of anything having to do with chemistry, I’m talking about the danger of someone thinking you have a meth lab. Police really can’t tell a meth lab from a school science experiment, and will decide that anything that looks “sciencey” must be some sort of apparatus for making drugs until proven otherwise. People have sat in jail for months waiting for lab results to come back showing their suspected drugs were nothing of the sort.