Glass: Looking In, Looking Out

Gr 1-3–This fascinating nonfiction picture book is all about glass. Theule opens with all the ways people use glass today and then goes back in history to how glass was made and how people figured out different applications for it. Readers learn that three ingredients go into glass: sand, soda ash, and limestone. Minerals in sands sourced from different places make the glass turn different colors, like gold chloride is behind cranberry red and lead makes the glass sparkle, which is why leaded crystal is highly valued for chandeliers and beautiful glasses. People started off trying to shape glass much the ways they had shaped rocks but tapping it to break small pieces off but eventually found that they could mold glass and to blow glass into any shape they wanted. The art work adds interesting details to the facts and will help young readers make connections to the ideas presented. This book would a terrific read-aloud for an art class or a science class about states of matter or a social studies lesson about how things have changed over time.