Gravity: A Fairy Tale [PDF + eBook + Bonus Story]

Worry was named by a fairy godmother who promptly disappeared and was never seen again — which left Worry growing up in a castle of fairy-named children who could use magic, while she could not. Her optimistic sister Hope can. Their teacher, Fortitude Knightward ("Fort for short"), is the last remaining Scholar Knight, and after Worry runs away and discovers she'd rather be useful than left out, Fort offers her the role of caretaker of the castle's enchanted objects — which finally gets her a set of keys. What follows is a story of astronomy towers, sea riddles, a leaning castle, a bottomless pit, an astonishingly judgmental library, a dragon's lair, and gravity itself — what it actually is, how scientists have used it to find things they couldn't see, and what it might mean for a girl who has spent her whole life feeling pulled toward all the wrong things.

Written by Sarah Allen. Edited by Jennifer Murgia. Illustrated in color by Marie Delwart. Ages 9–12.

What's inside the book

• Eighteen chapters across 187 pages of story
• Two short conceptual explainers woven between chapters — The Geometry of Gravity (why circles and ellipses keep showing up) and Using Gravity to Find the Invisible (how astronomers discovered Neptune)
• Two hands-on science activities — a tides-and-observation exercise inspired by Kepler's notebooks, and a density experiment with sand and gravel
• A pendulums activity with safety notes — figure out what does and doesn't affect a pendulum's swing using just a stopwatch and a weight on a string
• Two guided gravity simulations using free online tools — the PhET Gravitational Force simulator and GravitySimulator.org, where you can find out what happens if Earth orbits Saturn
• A discussion question, an opening writing prompt about what gravity is, and a closing writing prompt that loops back to it after the story is done
  

Plus a bonus pendulums adventure with calculations

Bundled with the book is Abigail's Totally Purposeful, Definitely Not Accidental or Dangerous, Adventure: A Story-Based Pendulums Exploration — a separate story featuring two characters from the world of Gravity. A girl named Abigail accidentally teleports herself to an unknown underground location, and has to measure the local strength of gravity using a pendulum necklace in order to figure out how to get home.

• The full illustrated story, with the math optional — students who don't want to do algebra can skip the calculation sections and still follow the plot
• A teacher guide with three adaptations for different ages and math-comfort levels — a No-Math version (ages 8–10), a Medium-Math version (ages 11–12) for students who can plug numbers into equations, and an All-the-Math version (ages 14+) for students ready for algebra
• Activity 1 — Measure the Strength of Gravity Where You Are, a real pendulum experiment
• Activity 2 — Make a Planetary Pendulum Necklace, including a string-length table for every planet in the solar system
• Three sets of practice exercises — a Rearranging Equations Super Challenge, Pendulum Calculations practice, and a "Guess What Planet You're On!" set
• A full solutions manual with step-by-step worked answers for every problem

What you'll get

• EPUB of the book (for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo)
• PDF of the book (for any device, or for printing)
• PDF of the bonus pendulums adventure, with all activity instructions and the full answer key
• Delivered by email immediately after purchase, plus available on your download page

Part of the Fairy Tale Physics series

Gravity is part of the Fairy Tale Physics series, but each book is self-contained and they can be read in any order. Readers of Newton's Laws: A Fairy Tale may notice a familiar face turning up somewhere around chapter fourteen.

About the author

Sarah Allen tutored math and physics for twenty years before becoming a full-time fantasy writer. She has a physics degree from the University of Washington (graduated with college and departmental honors) and a master's in Cognition and Learning from Columbia. Her goal is to write the sort of physics books she would have wanted as a kid.

Ages 9–12 · 187 pages · color illustrations · bonus pendulums story with activities, practice exercises, and full answer key