Title: Behind the Screens: How the internet works and how to make it work for you

Author: Niraj Lal; illustrated by Aśka

Publisher: University of Queensland Press, 2026; RRP:  $19.99

Reviewed by Rhonda Cotsell, Ballarat Writers Inc. Book Review Group

This excellent little book provides basic information about everything screen based – phone and computer – aimed primarily for children in the 8-14 age group. It also serves as a support guide for  teachers and for adult family members or carers at home looking for a guide in a format that is easy to navigate or to read with, or give to, children under their care.

I am particularly impressed not only with its scope and layout but also how it navigates a path between content that shares what there is to enjoy and gain from the internet and also what to be wary of. There is also generous space given to the non-internet time, and what each provides to enrich a child’s life and also what it lacks, and how they work together.

I found it easy to read as both an adult interested in the subject and as a parent already aware of the ups and downs of our relationship with our children regarding this subject.

Now, would I buy this for my grandson? Yes, despite the fact I can see his eyes rolling in disbelief and a despairing ‘Naaaaaann!’ at my presumption, given our shared familiarity with the significant deficits in my knowledge of all things IT, followed by the lofty observation that anyway he can find out all that on the internet (I find blackmail can work at this point; teachers, you’re on your own).

And as a nit picky reviewer thinking about how does it fulfil the promise of its title: Is it up-to-date? How thorough is its coverage? How easy is it to read given its reader/s and does the language bridge the gap between adult and child? How does it ‘sound’ read or spoken and does it inform or does it proselytise or attempt to inculcate? Is it grammatically correct, and especially, who wrote it and can they be trusted?

He can. The author’s background is one rich in science and involvement with children generally. Lal’s qualifications are impressive. He is an ANU Visiting Fellow and host of the ABC kids’ podcast Imagine This. He has a PhD in physics and has appeared on Play School and Catalyst. His awards include a 2021 Celestino Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science and a 2022 Royal Societies of Australia and New Zealand Piasecki Prize for Outstanding Writing on Social Change. He is also Dad to three children.

Listen to an interview with Dr Niral Lal about internet literacy

@ ABC Radio National

A minor quibble is the lack of an index, and a Contents list of chapter headings that, while catchy, provided little guidance to the information covered in each section – something an index would have solved. However,  the book is only 116 pages and the layout is extremely well designed, making it easy to pick up at a glance what each section contains from paragraph to section level.

The size of the book and layout is for me a significant success re accessibility of information and physical usability. Good for small hands and large, and portable. A lot has been accomplished by skilful use of varying fonts, text boxes, generous spacing for the eye to jump from one piece of information to another. Key words are bolded within concise paragraphs so skimming is effortless. This makes it easy to both locate a particular subject or choose whether to read that section or not. The colour scheme is a pleasant and consistent use of varying shades of blue – no use of the bright and grabby to disconcert. The illustrations are cartoon like. These and short, concise blocks of text break up the larger paragraphs, emphasising important points and allowing the reader to read quickly, picking up important information as an alternative to the slower word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence, but also repeating main points. This is especially good given the different levels of knowledge each reader will have, and level of concentration.

The illustrator Aśka is an award-winning graphic novelist and an ex-quantum physicist passionate about visual literacy and teaching people how to ‘write with pictures’.

Given its aim, it is simultaneously easy to read and engaging. There is an inbuilt and comfortable logical flow from one section to the next. For example,  Chapter 7 Being Healthy with Tech covers bullying and the importance of non-screen time, delves into whole-family involvement and, in a section on screen health, being aware of mood changes. Chapter 8 What To Believe uses the term spidey sense, a lovely word which adults might miss but childrenwill enjoy, to refer to that innocuous suspicion all of us feel looking at certain sites. It then talks about recognising legitimate information, which leads naturally into different opinions and algorithms, its incidental AI equivalent, looking at the pluses and minuses, describes user behaviour and tracking, then defines in simple terms the science used before going into fake news and how to identify it, who benefits from it, and the faking of proof. It also provides hints about trusting yourself – your spidey sense. All of which covers a lot of potentially boring ground for children.

Everything about it physically and in design allows for a variety of usage scenarios – classroom, small-group work, at home one-on-one with parent/carer and child, and solo reading and rereading. Also, though definitely not its aim, I – an older and less confident adult – read it from cover to cover, finding it helpful for understanding some terms, colloquialisms and context, and for checking I am on track with my own screen time.

Overall, an excellent work doing what all good books at the most basic level do best, which is to make its reader emerge knowing more than they did before.

Review copy provided by the publisher