A few years ago my photography friend invited us to go with her to watch an eclipse of the moon. She wanted to get a few good pictures, but my girls and I had more fun just watching the moon and picking out the different constellations we could find. This sparked an interest of the solar system in my kids. Since then we have studied Jay Ryan's Classical Astronomy book Signs & Seasons and we were thrilled to read his new Eclipses Illustrated: Book 1 – The Eclipse Experience.

Eclipses Illustrated: Book 1 – The Eclipse Experience is the first of five Kindle books written by Jay Ryan. It is a visual approach to understanding eclipses of the sun and moon with an emphasis on American Eclipses of the 21^st Century. There are twelve chapters with plenty of colorful pictures plus a note from the author, eclipse cartoons, and resources.

Jay Ryan not only explains what an eclipse is he goes in detail about lunar and solar eclipses and the uniqueness of a total eclipse. He gives reasons why it is so important to view the totality of a solar eclipse and shares a lot of photos illustrating the phases of an eclipse. The book specifically deals with eclipses in the United States both the lack of total solar eclipses in the 20^th century and the upcoming total eclipses in the 21^st century. Of course, we have all heard that we should never look directly at the sun and this book would not be complete without a chapter on safe solar eclipse viewing.

All three of my girls and myself read The Eclipse Experience. There are so many colored pictures throughout the book that it makes the reading very enjoyable and even younger children could benefit from the content. Jay's explanations of each phase of an eclipse are very easy to understand and with all the pictures included make it very memorable. US units of measurement are used instead of the metric system to help nonscientific readers to have a better understanding of the details. Maps are also included to show the exact path of each solar eclipse in the 21^st century and its maximum duration. We live in the middle of Nebraska and we should have a great view of the total solar eclipse in August of this year. I will be sharing information about this book with all of our friends that are looking forward to this event.

Jay Ryan has been trying to view a total solar eclipse since he was an eight-year-old boy in 1970. He wants to educate as many people about solar eclipses as he can before August 21, 2017, especially all the eight-year-old boys out there.

~Product review by Lisa McClanahan, The Old Schoolhouse®, LLC, March, 2017