Books that Teach Physics Through Stories
The Fairy Tale Physics Series
Fairy tales that teach physics concepts
Ages 10-12
Read in any order
Include activities and practice problems
Secular
Written, illustrated, edited, and formatted by humans
Newton’s Laws: A Fairy Tale
A short story about a boy named Kip who receives only a single apple with which to go out into the world and make his fortune. He meets a wizard named Newton who is on a quest to keep his arch-nemesis from becoming king. Together they must discover 3 laws that everyone in the kingdom must follow. (Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion).
88 pages
This book covers forces, free body diagrams, and Newton’s 3 laws.
It includes a skippable math section at the end with some fairly tough classic physics practice problems, and some suggestions for YouTube videos and Phet simulations to practice with.
Newton’s Laws: A Fairy Tale (2nd Edition)
After reading reviews, and hearing from parents and teachers over the years, there were some things I wanted to improve about the Newton’s Laws book.
I felt like the difficulty of the problems was too high for ages 10-12, so in this book I scaled that back. It still includes practice problems, but they’re much more kid-friendly. I left the first edition available, though, for those who liked the practice problems. (I heard from some people that that was their favorite part.)
I also had the book fully re-illustrated so there are full-color illustrations on almost every page now.
I also included a lot more little notes and connections to the real world, which is something I know really helps students.
123 pages
This book covers forces, free body diagrams, and Newton’s 3 laws.
Fluid Mechanics: A Fairy Tale
This was one of the first physics fairy tales I ever wrote. The story is cute, but the physics isn’t integrated as well with the story as I’d like.
The math level of the explanations is skippable for kids, but high school level.
I’m currently working on a second edition which will be much more kid-friendly.
96 Pages
Covers Archimedes’ Principle, Archimedes’ Screw, Buoyancy, Flow Rate, Bernoulli’s Principle, and Pressure
Light: A Fairy Tale
This book covers light and electromagnetic waves. It talks about the color spectrum, and how light can behave like a particle or like a wave.
A young prince has just been crowned king, and in order to avoid more potato-throwing rioters outside the castle, he resolves to learn about light and its properties from five mysterious ghosts.
74 Pages
Color illustrations
Gravity: A Fairy Tale
Worry is the only student at the Academy of the Scholar Knights who does not have a fairy godmother. Because of this, she’s not allowed to do magic, and instead works as the caretaker of the magical castle and all its inhabitants.
When her sister is kidnapped by a dragon and taken to one of their planet’s moons, Worry must go on a quest, learning about gravity from the echoes of famous Earth scientists (Aristotle, Newton, Galileo, Kepler, and Einstein) in order to rescue her sister.
This book covers: gravity, and how our scientific understanding of gravity came about over centuries of experimentation.
206 pages
Color illustrations
Allora and the Puzzles of Archimedes
This book introduces levers, pulleys, mechanical advantage, and friction, plus some little number puzzles and patterns that Archimedes liked.
197 pages
Black and white illustrations
Fairy Tale Physics: Books 1-4 Omnibus
This collection includes the first editions of these books:
Newton’s Laws
Fluid Mechanics
Light
Gravity
440 Pages
Physics Fables
I heard from teachers that the short stories worked better in classrooms, so I wrote this collection of short stories that introduce buoyancy, special relativity, complex numbers, magnetism, and the physics of animal perception.
This one doesn’t have any math in it.
Full color illustrions.
116 Pages