Matter and Its Properties

Overview

Matter and Its Properties, written by Joseph Midthun, is an illustrated nonfiction title aimed at young readers who are just beginning to encounter formal science concepts. It walks through the basic building blocks of the physical world — what matter is, how it takes up space, and how scientists classify its different states and characteristics.

Rather than presenting these ideas as dry definitions, the book leans on visual explanation to carry much of the instructional weight, a hallmark of Midthun's work in illustrated educational nonfiction. Concepts like solids, liquids, gases, and physical versus chemical change are broken into digestible, image-driven sequences meant to build intuition before vocabulary.

As a work of classroom-oriented nonfiction, its ambitions are modest and clearly stated: to give elementary-level readers a first, approachable foothold in physical science, the kind of foundational text libraries stock alongside broader STEM collections rather than a narrative work meant to be read for its own sake.

Context and Purpose

The book belongs to a broader category of illustrated nonfiction that has grown steadily in school and public libraries over the past two decades: comics-format and heavily illustrated titles designed to make STEM subjects legible to readers who might otherwise find textbook prose intimidating. Midthun's contribution sits within that movement, using sequential art techniques more commonly associated with graphic novels to serve an explicitly instructional purpose.

Its reception has generally tracked with that of similar titles in the genre — treated as a practical curriculum supplement and library reference rather than a standout literary work, valued for accessibility and clarity more than originality of subject matter, since the science it covers is standard and non-controversial on its face.

Why Matter and Its Properties Has Been Challenged

This title has been challenged or banned in 1 state and 1 district tracked in this catalog. Given its subject matter — the physical properties of matter, a standard elementary science topic with no thematic content related to identity, history, or social issues — the objections recorded against it do not appear to stem from anything within the book's own pages.

Instead, its inclusion on challenge lists is consistent with a pattern seen elsewhere in school and library censorship efforts: nonfiction and illustrated titles are sometimes swept up in broader, format- or collection-wide reviews — actions aimed at graphic novels as a category, or at an entire shelf or vendor list, rather than at the specific educational content of any one book. In such cases, a science primer like this one can end up removed or restricted alongside works of fiction and memoir despite having little in common with them beyond format or shelving location.