Amazing Magnets; Build it Strong; Using Energy; Weather Watch

Each of these four - harbingers of a whole fresh dozen from Watts - looks at the bones of its subject and fleshes them out with friendly information challenges to find more and with little construction projects.

In Weather Watch we learn to make the tools of the meteorologist's trade and what they measure. Build it Strong shows how good building is all about geometrical reinforcement of the innate strengths of materials (nice to see books in their traditional role as components of model bridges, as well as space devoted to tent structure.)

Magnets reveals just how abundant they are in daily life, shows us an actual lodestone and encourages cooperation in the making of an engaging little toy theatre. The widest ranging of the four, Using Energy, very properly accords equal status to wind, water and solar power alongside fossil fuel and electricity (which is helpfully separated into current and static sorts).

This highly approachable quartet has a lot to say to this writer - whose house is in the throes of a radical doing-up in an attempt to make and keep it warm and dry in a region where the weather forecast is sponsored by Goretex. It should also have a lot to say to primary science teachers for some time to come.