The subtitle of this book is "All about rocks, minerals, fossils, earthquakes, volcanoes, & even dirt!" so you can tell right away there will be a lot of information packed into 128 pages.

After a quick introduction, the book plunges right into the information. The ten chapters each begin with a comic, featuring the Dirtmeister at a geology job, where he gets interrupted with a question about the earth from a kid. There are about five spreads per chapter, and each spread includes about one page of text, a handful of photographs and several other pieces of information ranging from experiments to "Dirtmeister Nuggets" which are factoids to short biographies of famous scientists and cartoons or maps.

Back matter includes a list of notes that relates the chapters to science curriculum, an index, and photo credits. I felt the cartoon illustrations were a bit over the top and tried too hard to be "kid-friendly" but they aren't so prolific that they take away from the information in the book and younger kids will probably enjoy them.

I felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information on such a wide variety of subjects crammed into this small book. Everything from plate tectonics to fossils, from earthquakes to diamonds. The experiments looked interesting, but tended to be a lot more simple than what I expected from the build up in the introduction. I certainly wouldn't recommend reading it straight through and I'm not even sure I'd recommend it to a kid who's interested in, say, rocks, since it's so wide-ranging and kids who are "interested" in something tend to have a rather narrow focus. However, it makes a great resource for earth science curriculum and I can see kids who enjoy compendiums of facts dipping in and enjoying it.

Verdict: This isn't my top pick for National Geographic's earth science offerings - kids are more likely to pick up the Everything series - but if you can't afford that entire series, this gives a little on a variety of subjects and would be a great resource for school and for kids to browse.

ISBN: 9781426319037; Published 2015 by National Geographic; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library

One of the things that I find myself really jealous about is how my kids have access to so much fun science. When I was a wee child the only accessible science we had was Science Weekly, a thin elementary school level magazine where the latest space craft and jets were described. It was brief but wonderful and I loved it.

Now of course there is so much more. Cool shows like HOW IT'S MADE, COSMOS, DIRTY JOBS, BILL NYE, MYTHBUSTERS and the DIRTMEISTER. Not just science and math here but edu-tainment.

What I love about edu-tainment is how easy it makes it for kids to absorb information. In videos and in print kid-friendly formats lead to kids absorbing information and wanting to know more. This is why I'm a fan of the DIRTMEISTER//National Geographic Kids combine. You get science that's presented in easy to understand and digest nuggets. And the DIRTMEISTER's NITTY GRITTY PLANET EARTH is very kid-friendly.

In this book readers will flip their way through all kids of earthly questions and answers. They'll find out about Earthquakes, Minerals, Volcanoes, Fossils and more. The format is colorful and like a sophisticated comic book with plenty of action and information. Even the paper is pleasant to touch with it's heavy slick feel.

I LOVED:: the bright colorful format and the titles of the different sections. The section on carbon dating, for example, is called 'The Clocks in the Rocks'. It's a cleverness kids and adults can appreciate.

OTHER CONDENSED NOTES
--I don't having reading numbers on this book yet. They just aren't out.

--If your reader is young you might have to sit down with them for a moment and go over the format. In places the 'dialog' and flow of the story is split on the same pages. For example, in Chapter 3 in the top half of the pages show the DirtMeister is talking to his buddy, Digger, and they are setting up probes along a fault line. The bottom half of the pages has a dialog between the Meister and a girl from Japan that wants to find out what causes earthquakes. The backgrounds of the two storylines are different so that you don't get confused, but a new reader might need to be shown this.

--the science comes in levels. To stick with our Earthquake example, kids can keep to the simple stuff, or they can learn about S-waves and P-waves. There's even an experiment to use to help lock-down understand of the differences.

--Chapter 3 is 12 pages long.

RECOMMEND. This would be a good book for the home or classroom shelves. Libraries, of course. (review copy) ( )