The Rock and Gem Book: And Other Treasures of the Natural World
Earth’s extraordinary minerals, gems, shells, and fossils are all on a dazzling display in this essential visual encyclopedia for children. Feast your eyes on the ultimate treasure trove that any pirate would envy. More than 1,000 stunning photographs showcase rocks and gems in glorious detail, ensuring you can recognize sedimentary from sandstone, metamorphic from marble, and pyrite from pearl. The unique qualities of each eye-catching material are described in-depth, together with their broad range of uses in art, industry, architecture, and science.
Keep your eyes open for rainbow rocks, fluorescent minerals, priceless diamonds, and meteor showers on your geological journey of discovery. Meet dinosaurs in the prehistoric period to understand how fossils form, join the pyramid builders of ancient Egypt to investigate the limestone bricks and take a dip in the ocean on the hunt for clams, cowries, and cockles.
Treasure seekers, get set to start your own collection with The Rock and Gem Book.
Reviews (138)
Visually beautiful - not very useful as a reference.
Like all of the DK/Smithsonian books, this book is visually stunning. Showing pictures of rocks and gems, along with a little information about where they came from, this book does not go into much depth. Only about half of this book covers rocks and gems, while the other half is devoted to other natural elements, such as fossils, shells, etc. This is an informative and colorful book, but it isn't exactly what I was looking for. It would not be useful as a "field guide" or as a detailed reference on rocks and gems. Please mark if you find my review helpful. Thank you so much!
Bought for a gift, kept for myself instead....
I have a confession. I own many geology books, college books, a lab book, a mini handheld book and a couple other as well. Geology is definitely a personal passion. I bought this book originally for my niece for Christmas to go with a rocks and minerals set I also got. I thumbed through the book thinking I’d be able to put it down and move on to the wrapping stage. I was sucked down into the vortex of this book! An hour later I realized I would just “delay” wrapping this item. A day later I decided I could send a second copy of this book for her birthday instead!
AMAZING TOOL
This book is absolutely amazing. This is coming from a mom that owns HUNDREDS of children books ranging from baby through those "young adult" books that grown ups are loving. We have a lot of educational books on various subjects. My kids are really into rocks these days so for Christmas I added this & another book that looked promising to our 'library.' Both books are incredible. They arrived looking brand new (which was a miracle after how the box itself looked). Both books were clearly made very well. Absolutely a high quality product! The pictures are filled with pictures & offer a perfect reading aide. And the reading material is wonderful. The books are formated so well that my first grade spent a whole hour looking through them both (we are lucky if we get five minutes usually) after he had already been through them several times. I would recommend this book to anyone who is considering it.
Beautiful book!
My 7 year old son is very interested in gems and rocks, and this book is big and beautiful! Very colorful photos, interesting information but not too dense for us to read together. He has loved looking at all the gems, and it has made me want to start collecting as well!
Not a field guide
This book is not a field guide. It is an introduction to rocks and fossils for kids. It is the most engaging book on the topic that I have found. Kids come up with all sorts of questions that lead into investigations and sometimes experiments. I do have a rock collection with basic ways to tell them apart and test their properties. I also like to pair this book with National Geographic's Rock, Mineral, & Fossil kit to make a nice gift (do not forget to have some sort of storage for the rocks - a lidded, divided storage box would suffice. ) Overall, I recommend this book because kids find it so engaging. A great introduction to rocks.
Gorgeous and fascinating!
It took me hours to get this wrapped. I couldn't stop looking at it. What an absolutely beautiful book! It's divided into sections for different types of rocks. Who knew there are this many? We're learning so much from it.
Wonderful book for all ages...hard to put down!
This is a beautiful book. We gave it to our 16 year old son along with a rock tumbler for his birthday and he loved both so much. This book is so colorful and educational..seriously hard to stop reading and looking at. Highly recommend. The rock tumbler we got was also perfect for our rock loving and collecting family. https://smile.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Hobby-Rock-Tumbler/dp/B01LQCIL88/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1E9VXCWTTO3IN&keywords=national+geographic+rock+tumbler&qid=1577803366&sprefix=national%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-4
Great Book .
This is a great first book on the rocks and gems. I have been so interested in the rocks, minerals and gems out there that make beautiful jewelry. I have some jewelry made with rocks and gems that I have never heard of before. Example-- magnesite and unakite. Ladies, Google it and you can learn about them. This book has great illustrations and is easy to read. I recommend it for rock hounds.
Amazing Pictures & Simple text!
I was very happily surprised by this book. The reviews made me think this book was sub par but that is far from the truth. The pictures are amazing (they blew me away) and the information is short, sweet, and straight to the point. This is great for me and my children. It answers our curiousity and leaves room for further investigation where ever we want with no pressure to know it all with massive amounts of texts!!! I LOVE it!!!
Super book for rock fans
Outstanding book we discovered at our local Gelato place! Had to look it up and was happy to find it. Daughter, 5, is reading it and gets upset if we try to close it because we lose her page. ; ) Great leave of detail - we learned a lot from the first reading. Endless pictures - both of rocks and minerals and where they originate. Highly recommend for anyone with a rock collection and/or interest.
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