ELECTRONICS BLEG UPDATE: My earlier posting of a reader request for books educating children in elementary electronics generated a lot of email. Here’s my distillation.

Reader George Coulouris recommends Forrest Mims’ Getting Started In Electronics. He also recommends the hydraulic analogy, which I was taught. Lots of readers recommended Mims.

Reader Andy Linnenkohl recommends Paul Horowitz’s The Art of Electronics, commenting: “It just doesn’t get any better than this. As a working engineer in the semiconductor industry I can testify to the fact that not a single engineer I work with does not have a very worn out copy of this book sitting somewhere on his desk. For the working professional it is their college education in one place. At the same time Horowitz and Hill have written a very readable, approachable treatment that is reasonable (I avoid the word “light” for fear of being drummed out of IEEE) on the math and more focuses on concepts at a elementary, logical and rational level. A parent and child could supplement any electronics learning with brief pulls from TAOE and would find the content to meet the learning needs without being too difficult to comprehend.”

Several readers recommend Usborne Electricity, and there’s also the Usborne Introduction to Electronics.

Snap Circuits also, as reader Wayne Padgett notes, come in a Student Training version that includes much more explanatory documentation. There’s even one for the advanced 750 model.

So there you are! I still wish someone would bring back Elementary Electronics, though.