My son is 11 and has a strong interest in science. He'd like to read books that are not textbooks. Most of what I find that is any good is written for adults. When a book claims to be for a kid, it tends to be pretty dull. Ideally, I am looking for books that dig deeply into a topic that can grab a kid's imagination. Any leads?

They don't write 'em like that any more, unfortunately. The few new good ones tend to cost a fortune. If you want to find good ones for something approaching an affordable price you'll probably have to spend years hitting used book stores, rummage sales, and estate sales. And of course the library. Decade by decade kids' non-fiction books have not only become increasingly dull but increasingly dim. You can often get better science in the newspaper! You might want to widen your search to books published outside the U.S.; for example Britain used to have a good reputation for intelligent kids' books.

Two other books I especially liked were:

"Still More Tell Me Why" by Arkady Leokum. (Presumably his other similar books are of similar quality.) I have continued to find it useful as a quick source of information. Unsurprisingly, it's out of print. This book has a one to two page overview of hundreds of topics, for example: What makes some diamonds more valuable? Why does the moon shine? Why do snakes have scales? What is an electric eel?

I was eleven when I read the Reader's Digest condensed version of "Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind" by Donald Johanson & Maitland Edey. The arrangement of the text makes it remarkably readable. It IS used as a textbook, but it reads like a novel. It's about the discovery of the Australopithecine fossils and the work to figure out where they belong in the fossil record over a period which saw some quantum leaps in technology. When I reread the full book as an adult I was pleasantly surprised to discover it is also about the history of anthropology and how rapidly scientific study has changed from little better than relic hunting to a genuine multidisciplinary interest in the history of the Earth.