The second edition of the Basic Chemical Principles textbook by Peters and Kowerski shows a refinement of a method that leads beginning students into the study of chemistry. The book is very well designed to accomplish this goal. Numerous graphics and figures in color fill each chapter as the basic concepts are developed and these are easy to view. There is an abundance of exercises at the end of the chapters, including well-developed matching sets. Some exercises also are identified by text section that allows the student to focus on a small part of the text and then work a problem. There also are short problems inserted in the text called "Quick Checks".

The authors spend time in Chapter One, "Learning Chemistry--NOW!", discussing with the reader how to understand chemistry in an efficient way. The importance of spending time outside of class is highlighted as well as various learning techniques such as outlining and developing a study ethic. As many chemistry instructors have noticed a change in students' behavior over the years and as Baurer recently has pointed out (Chem. & Eng. News, Aug 7, 1995), it seems many students entering college chemistry courses do not have these skills. "Write It Down", "Informal Outlines" and explicitly explaining to students how to use the textbook is important because the textbook targets the general student who is just beginning to study the physical sciences.

Because this textbook targets the beginning student who probably has weak math skills, the authors have a chapter that both explains and drills the student on scientific notation, the metric system, and significant figures. This 40- page chapter also gives a discussion of dimensional analysis using various examples of money calculations to show the student that he or she already is familiar with this problem-solving method. Throughout the book the performance goals are highlighted at the beginning of each section, and when a piece of text is related to them a "PG alert" is printed boldly in red in the margin. "Flashback" notes included in chapters also are a neat idea to show the student how concepts are used continually and built upon. Also, the new "Everyday Chemistry" sections are good, but there are not as many of them as I would like.

Organic molecules have been added to Chapter 12, "The Structure and Shape of Molecules", but the text continues to use essentially inorganic compounds as examples throughout. A wildlife biology student might not see the relevance of chemistry to his interests in that biochemistry is not dealt with. Many students who are in a course at the level this book is designed for are interested in careers in medical science or biology and would not find much of a rationale for learning basic chemistry. More biochemical examples might be helpful in the future.

Potential users may consider this book for a one-semester general course. The book also may be useful for the general, organic, and biochemistry two-semester sequence used for health science majors. For this approach this book would provide a more detailed treatment of basic chemistry that could be followed by an "Introduction to Biochemistry" text. With this approach, the instructor would have to supplement this book with examples from the life sciences.