How Technology Works

Gr 4–7-Not directly linked to How Science Works but covering adjacent territory, this gathering of modern technological wonders offers lucid if generally simplified overviews of each invention's major elements in operation. Nearly all of the graphic illustrations are cutaway views or schematic representations of stages or processes; they are clear and easy to understand if less dramatic or visually intense than photographs would be. The single-spread entries are randomly ordered within functional headings such as "Power Technology" or "Medical Technology," and vary in scope from "Animal Farming" and "Arches and Domes," to "Smartphones," "Toilets," and "Pacemakers." Confirmed STEM-winders will learn more about technology's underlying principles and finer details from the latest edition of David Macaulay's The Way Things Work Now, but readers with a dawning interest in buildings or bridges, plastics, clothes driers, or how a "lasagne [sic] ready meal" is factory assembled will be well served. The book will also attract students looking for broad views of where today's tech is headed in cutting edge fields as diverse as AI, gene modification, alternative power, and smart homes.