This question may seem quite odd anywhere else, but probably expected here.

My seven year old recently became fascinated by the periodic table, and is asking a lot of questions about the elements, atoms, parts of atoms, etc. (I nearly failed high school chemistry, so he's clearly barking up the wrong tree!).

That said, does anyone have a basic kids level chemistry book that they recommend? He's not ready a long science narrative- so anything that can provide some straightforward explanations of basic chemistry/element.

Hi cammom,

YMMV, but The Elements by Theodore Gray is one of my DS9's desert-island books.

Yes, The Elements by Theodore Gray is great. Also see his website.

Another book which may be of interest is The Disappearing Spoon, "... incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table."

Ellen McHenry's Chemistry curriculum is highly recommended on the Well Trained Mind forums and I plan to use it for my son.
http://store.ellenjmchenry.com/?product_cat=elements

Cammom, has he checked out the DK/Kingfisher science books? I find that they pack a LOT of information in, but without the lengthy blocks of text in other books at a similar content level. Don't be fooled by the "picture book" qualities of these, and the fact that they appeal to kids as young as four or five-- they DO have pretty high-level content in those tiny figure legends!!

I'm also pretty confident that there are some chemistry titles in the series.

DD9 loves the Basher science books (recommended above by squishys), and became hooked on them years ago.

Any of the DK books (recommended by HK), are also excellent.

These are great suggestion- I found the Basher science books at a used bookstore today= I splurged on kid level physics and math too, since they seemed to have an entire set. He loves them. We have the Theodore Grey iPad app, but it sounds like I should look at the book.
Seems DS has discovered another "interest"- tornadoes and dinosaurs I could handle, but anything at the atomic level is far out of my depth.

You can often find used middle-school and high-school textbooks at Alibris for $1-2 apiece. I bought a whole set of middle school level Science Explorer series for about $10 at one point-- they are general, but quite nice, in shortish paragraphs with lots of pictures.

I also hang out at library used book sales to pick up textbooks...