Life on Mars (Carson)

Summary: An excellent book for FLL Jr and youngest FLL teams interested in learning more about the possibility of life on mars and the scientific process of learning about a distant planet's biology.  An inexpensive addition to any elementary-level collection of books about outer space.

Title: Life on Mars

Author: Mary Kay Carson

Publication information:  Scholastic, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-93548-7
Sample page:

This easy-reader gives a nice run-down on questions about whether there could be/has been life on Mars and about more than five decades of missions that have tried to answer these questions.  There are numerous pages dedicated to the various rovers (robots) that have visited Mars, which is a nice tie-in for FLL and FLL Jr.  

Books at this level (Guided reading level N / Lexile 550L) are often thin on content due to the need to keep the text at the right level, but this book is better than most.  The writing style is simple, but there's a lot of scientific process and evidence packed into it.  Most pages have color photos or photo-like illustrations.  This book could be a good option for an FLL team member with reading delays.

Most of the book uses an impersonal "scientists think" style, with no actual scientists pictured, but one page late in the book is dedicated to the work of Dr. Nathalie Cabrol.

Overall summary:  Buy it if the reading level is appropriate!  Highly recommended.

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