George's Secret Key to the Universe

  • Lucy &
  • Stephen Hawking
Doubleday: £12.99 Simon & Schuster: $17.99 1416954627 | ISBN: 1-416-95462-7

Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time was a huge commercial success. Its achievements in bringing difficult scientific ideas to a wide audience are not so clear. Now the distinguished physicist has teamed up with his daughter Lucy to produce a children's book designed to communicate contemporary physics. Will it capture the attention of young minds and teach them some real science? Or will it be boring and over the heads of the prospective readers?

George's Secret Key to the Universe is an adventure story complete with villains and hero and is illustrated with enjoyable line-drawings. It involves a lost pig, a humorously portrayed intelligent computer, school bullies and a trip through the Solar System. Didactic discussions on aspects of modern physics, such as supernova explosions and black-hole physics are hung on this set-up. There are also fact boxes on physics and astronomy, and some photographs of astronomical phenomena: planets, comets, galaxies and so on. Overall, the book is a serious effort to convey facts and ideas in present day astronomy and astrophysics, within a science-fiction adventure story.

The mixture is great. Children love facts and adventure stories. The combination will catch their interest and keep them occupied for hours. After ten minutes of leafing through the book, my granddaughter Ruby was deeply absorbed and I had to promise to bring it back for her to read after I had completed my review. Like any educational tool, it will succeed for some and not for others. I reckon there should be more of the former.

Credit: LUCY & STEPHEN HAWKING, GEORGE'S SECRET KEY TO THE UNIVERSE, RANDOM HOUSE

I have two small quibbles. First, there is a bit of a disjunction between the science and the science-fiction parts that could confuse: is the kind of space travel envisaged in the narrative compatible with the hard science in the science sections? I suspect not. Second, I find the cover garish. But my youthful consultant loved it; so who am I to query the taste of youth?