I submitted my review of this book to Teach Secondary magazine, an educational magazine in the UK. The first review below is what the magazine published. The second one is what I actually wrote! In substantive terms there is little difference between the two, but you may find it interesting to see what the editor altered.
The Teach Secondary version
Arriving in the wake of the Department for Education’s [in England] strategy for sustainability and climate change, and announcement of a new Natural History GCSE [General Certificate of Education], this book comes across as a timely addition to the debate around climate change. As well as being bang up-to-date in the information it contains, the book presents a balanced account of the issues and evidence involved.
It’s a volume that lives up to its series’ ‘Learning made easy’ tagline, successfully making complex processes and principles eminently understandable. For British readers, though, there’s one obvious drawback to using the book for classroom inspiration in that there’s a fairly heavy focus in places on US-centric systems and proposals.
The authors also present some very bold and optimistic assessments of our collective renewable energy sources, when it still seems we’re not quite there yet...
Reviewed by Terry Freedman
My original version
In my experience most editors like to tweak submissions, either to conform better to the publication’s house style or, as I think is the case here, to adjust the word count slightly because of space considerations. As a writer, you might like to see my original review, and compare and contrast. Here it is:
This book is a timely and welcome addition to the debate on climate change. Timely, because the Department for Education’s strategy for sustainability and climate change for the education and children’s services systems was published in April of this year. In addition, a new Natural History GCSE, with its focus on how our decisions affect the environment, is due to be available in the next couple of years. Welcome, because as well as being bang up to date, this book presents a balanced account of the issues and evidence involved.
The volume lives up to the series’ tagline, “Learning made easy”, managing to make quite complex principles understandable.
There are, though, two disadvantages of using this book. One is that the main focus is on the USA in some areas. More seriously, the authors are perhaps unrealistic in their assessment of renewable energy sources. We’re not quite there yet.