“… The top­ic of soil is cov­ered with some depth, and this book would also be good sup­port for a unit on plants or gar­den­ing. The authors begin with an expla­na­tion and illus­tra­tion of the ques­tion “What is soil?” From there they address for­ma­tion, com­po­si­tion, lay­ers (hori­zons), appear­ance, and a clos­ing chap­ter on soil con­ser­va­tion. … The con­cepts are pre­sent­ed with clear, acces­si­ble lan­guage, col­or pho­tographs and a clear flow among the con­nec­tions between each chap­ter. … The pho­tos are well–captioned and clear­ly sup­port the text mate­r­i­al. For the class that is begin­ning a study that involves plants or soil, this book would be an excel­lent, non­fic­tion addi­tion to the unit mate­r­i­al or for the non­fic­tion library. This book is an excel­lent addi­tion for 3rd through 5th grade stu­dents. (NSTA Recommends)