The Cartoon Guide To Chemistry by Larry Gonick and Craig Criddle is a non-fiction book that is part of the famous cartoon history series created by Larry Gonick. This is a black and white comic strip that covers all the main chemistry topics taught in high school and college. The HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. published this book in 2005. This two hundred and fifty page book explains the history and basics of chemistry through fun illustrations and attractive graphics. The books start with basic concepts and then gradually end with complex topics like organic chemistry. Gonick and Criddle also used dialogue between different characters in the book to grab students' attention more effectively than a normal chemistry textbook. At the beginning, the authors tell how it all started with fire. A philosopher named Heraclitus suggested that everything was made of fire. Fire was the first chemical reaction that impressed our ancestors. However, Aristotle said that everything was made up of four basic elements and that other things were just the mixture of these elements. The elements were air, earth, fire and water. Both of their theories were completely wrong. Then scientists began to learn about gases. Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) created reactions using a sealed flask connected by a tube to an upside-down bottle of liquid. The reaction would form gases that would bubble up through the liquid. While in France, a scientist named Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was doing a very similar experiment which helped him develop the law of conservation of matter, according to which nothing can be created or destroyed; all elements are simply rearranged into new combinations. He also said that air and fire were not an element. Lavoisier explains the air......middle of paper......me. Some cartoons were very funny and interesting so I will probably never forget them. It showed me that learning chemistry isn't always boring and uninteresting. The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry presented all this information in a diverse and striking way. Most people think that a children's book can only be made up of lots of pictures and little words. However, this book proves them wrong because it is surely well formed even though it is mostly cartoons. Overall, the book isn't perfect but it's still good. Reading this book has benefited me in many ways. It helped me understand chemistry concepts much easier and taught me things I didn't know before. Chemistry is absolutely not a simple subject; It's filled with tons of complicated topics but the more we learn about chemistry, the more we understand how the things around us are the way they are.