Seymour Simon would like to be a golden plover for a day, soaring across the sky on its 12,000-mile migration from northern Alaska to southern Argentina and back.

Mr. Simon may never get that bird's-eye view of the earth, but since he began writing science books for children 28 years ago, he has unveiled the sweeping panorama of the universe for young readers. From earthquakes to earthworms, soap bubbles to the solar system and wolves to wildfires, his 150 books transmit the fun and fascination of science.

We think of science as test tubes," Mr. Simon said in an interview at his home in Great Neck, "but science is really everything around us and in us. Everything you can see or experience has a science aspect, from the obvious things like the sun, moon, stars, trees and animals, to why a curve ball curves.

"I'm more interested in arousing enthusiasm in kids than in teaching the facts. The facts may change, but that enthusiasm for exploring the world will remain with them the rest of their lives."

Mr. Simon's writing is lyrical, conveying an aesthetic rather than technical appreciation of science. In "The Heart," the first in a new series on human anatomy to be published this summer by William Morrow, he describes the vast network of cells in familiar and wondrous terms:

"We each have 25 trillion red blood cells, hundreds of times more blood cells than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Shaped something like a doughnut without a hole, each red blood cell is too tiny to see without a microscope. Yet stacked one upon another in a single column, the red blood cells in our bodies would tower 30,000 miles high."

Mr. Simon extrapolated the mileage from figures stating how many million cells would make an inch.

"Wow!" he said after he read the paragraph aloud. "You don't need to know what 25 trillion or 30,000 miles is to know that it's a lot. I want to show that science gives us new ways of seeing things, ways that fill us with wonder and awe."

More than 80 of Mr. Simon's books have been named Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children by the National Science Teachers Association/Children's Book Council. The American Association for the Advancement of Science has just given a Best Science Children's Book award to his "Science Dictionary" (HarperCollins), which features more than 2,000 entries and took him five years to write. He has received four lifetime achievement awards: from the American Nature Study Society, the Washington Post/Children's Book Guild, New York Library Association and National Forum on Children's Science Books.

Three shelves in his study are filled with his work, including his series on astronomy and earth science (Morrow), animals (HarperCollins), and seasons (Hyperion). Since many of his books are photo-essays, he has honed his skills as a photographer. A framed photograph of trees reflected in water that he took at Kings Point Park in Great Neck provides ample evidence of his talent.

He culls the color photographs that illustrate his books from a variety of sources beyond his own photography: NASA, medical and science libraries, specialized researchers and photographers.

"The synergy of the text and the photographs is bigger than the sum of their parts," he said. "They build on each other and flow like a movie documentary."

A network of capillaries in "The Heart," taken by a scanning electron microscope, then enlarged hundreds of times and computer colorized, resembles purplish coral. The ballooning throat of a spring peeper frog, one of the harbingers of spring, seems to swell right in front of a reader's eyes in "Spring Across America" (Hyperion, March 1996). Saturn's rings, photographed by the Voyager spacecraft, look like the "grooves on a phonograph record," according to Mr. Simon's text in "Our Solar System" (Morrow).

The great white shark's long pointed teeth draw near menacingly in "Sharks" (HarperCollins, 1995), but Mr. Simon emphasizes in the text that shark attacks are rare. "I wanted to do a book that didn't depict sharks as terrible, ghastly things," he said, "but to show their place in nature. People are interested in sharks because of the scary aspect, and so am I. When kids read about and see the terrible stark beauty, part of the awe remains, but familiarity and appreciation replace irrational fear."

In "Wildfires" (Morrow, March 1996), too, danger and beauty create a heady mix. Mr. Simon shows how living trees burn as fast as cardboard boxes in a bonfire, how flames race through treetops sometimes faster than a person can run, burning at temperatures hot enough to melt steel. But he also explains the crucial role of wildfires in the cycle of nature.

Though many of Mr. Simon's books are about space, he is down to earth in jeans and blue work shirt. His tortoise-shell glasses, gray hair and hearty high-pitched chuckle lend him the aura of a kindly uncle or, at least, the science teacher that he was for 23 years in the New York City school system. He is looking forward to recreating the "corny jokes" he used as a teacher when he begins writing the next book in his "Einstein Anderson" fiction series, featuring a boy who uses science to solve mysteries, outwit bullies and improve his sports ability. After publication of the new title by Morrow, the entire series of seven books is scheduled for republication by Avon next year.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/18/nyregion/unveiling-the-panoramas-of-the-universe-for-young-readers.html?pagewanted=4&src=pm
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