3 h 45 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the empty space around you is full of something that has weight, pushes, and lifts?
In Rollo's Philosophy: Air, Jacob Abbott turns an unseen part of everyday life into something worth exploring. Rollo's subject is air: what it is, how it behaves, and why it matters. Simple trials and common objects make the questions approachable, without difficult formulas.
The exploration moves from air as a real substance to its weight, pressure, and motion. Wind gives sailing boats and windmills their power; birds, kites, and balloons invite questions about lift. Along the way, Abbott's clear, kindly teaching offers a glimpse of how children learn science in his nineteenth-century books.
What you’ll discover
- Something where nothing seems visible Explore the idea that a space can hold air even when it looks empty.
- The push of air Discover how air's weight and pressure underpin questions about pumps and barometers.
- Wind at work Connect moving air with the useful force behind a sailing boat or windmill.
- Questions in the sky Let birds, kites, and balloons draw your attention to how air holds things up.
- A patient way to learn Enjoy plain explanations that bring science close through simple trials and familiar objects.
Who will love it
Readers who like to see science worked out with bellows, lamps, umbrellas and boats, and parents or teachers who want a warm family tale that explains how air, fire, wind and sound behave.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Flying takes strength, and air is real
- A bellows proves air is a real thing
- We live at the bottom of an ocean of air
- Warm air rises when cool air pushes under
- A fire needs fresh air to live
- Gravity, wind and sound all move air
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear La philosophie de Rollo : L’air in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
La philosophie de Rollo : L’air
by Jacob Abbott
Rollo and Jonas test the air with bellows, a hollow stump and a boat caught in a squall.
Easy read2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What if you could ask a barn full of bellows, lamps and umbrellas to explain the sky? Rollo's Philosophy: Air, by the American author Jacob Abbott, does exactly that.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Flying takes strength, and air is real
Nathan reads a rhyme about wings and says he wishes he could fly. His father answers that the trouble is not a lack of wings. It is a lack of the strength to work them.
A boy is stronger than a robin in total, but not for his size. A bird must pull itself up on air that keeps giving way, like climbing a ladder that sinks under you. So birds need huge wings or very fast beats.
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What is Rollo's Philosophy: Air about?
It is a teaching book in which Rollo, his brother Nathan, cousin James, Jonas and their parents learn how air works. Flight, bellows, pressure, balloons, chimneys, fire, gravity, wind and sound are each explained through a small scene.
Who are Rollo, Nathan and Jonas?
Rollo is the older boy who loves experiments and sometimes shows off. Nathan is his little brother, full of questions.
What does philosophy mean in the title?
In Abbott's day, philosophy meant the study of how nature works, what we now call science. The title promises a lesson in the science of air, taught by experiments the children can try with ordinary things.
The author
Jacob Abbott
1803–1879 · American children's writer
Jacob Abbott was an American writer born in Hallowell, Maine, in 1803. He wrote children's books, including the Rollo series, during the nineteenth century. He also worked as a teacher and minister and founded a school in Boston. He later lived in Farmington, Maine, where he died in 1879.
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