I have been searching for the world's clearest explanation of chemistry.
I divide the books into two categories.
Books that Align with a Standard Chemistry Curriculum
Actual chemistry textbooks are supposed to be more or less equal. The one we used in high school was Zumdahl's World of Chemistry; I remember I liked it and could rely on it to explain clearly whatever I needed to know. Prentice Hall's is the other widely used chemistry textbook; I haven't read it.
Chemistry for Dummies and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry, which are written to cover the same material but in a less formal voice and without pretty pictures, are equally clear, though I don't think they offer anything a textbook doesn't. The latter is the more comprehensive of the two.
The author of the Idiot's has a website where he has published his own, humorous, free chemistry textbook, Chemistry: The Awesomest Science. It covers a standard high school curriculum and it's clearer than any other textbook I've seen. The trouble with it is that the language is not appropriate, so I can't give it to my students. The author gave me permission to bowdlerize it, but due to the nature of the course I'm teaching I don't have time, so there's a project up for grabs if someone wants it.
CK-12 Chemistry is another free, complete textbook that looks like a good resource, but since you have to read it on a special app and cannot print it out, I didn't look at it too closely.
The best explanation I've seen of basic chemistry ("an atom is...") is still Everything You Need to Ace Science in One Big Fat Notebook but since it's written for middle school it's only an introduction (e.g., it stops before getting into the difference between ionic and covalent bonds).
Chemistry: Investigate the Matter that Makes up Your World, from Nomad Press, goes further. It doesn't contain everything in the high school curriculum but it comes close to covering the Florida state high school standards. It's the clearest of the books on this list. If I were writing a textbook-based high school chemistry course from scratch I might make this slim volume the textbook (since it covers everything you need to know to be a basically chemistry-educated adult, with no extras) and teach everything else without recourse to a textbook at all.
Another book I have flipped through but haven't looked at too closely is The Joy of Chemistry, by Cobb and Fetterolf. It's not a simple book to look things up in; it's designed to take the reader on a journey. It looks good, though. I imagine there are a lot of homeschoolers who adore it.
Books that Don't Align with a Standard Chemistry Curriculum
There are some wonderful children's introductions to chemistry. My favorites are, as usual, the Victorians (who, fortunately, are free online):
The Wonder Book of Chemistry by Jean Henri Fabre (an excellent children's science writer - he has books on several sciences) and
The Chemical History of a Candle by Michael Faraday.
There is a brief chapter on chemistry in Edward Holden's The Sciences, which is a good book to know about; but Fabre goes deeper.
The genius of these old books (besides the mellifluous writing) is that they start off with the world that surrounds us. The Wonder Book of Chemistry, for instance, doesn't start off with the definition of an atom; it starts off with a chunk of sulphur. Faraday introduces chemistry through looking at a candle. It's (pedagogically) a very elegant approach.
Theodore Gray has a trilogy of books on chemistry. I've read only the first, The Elements. It wouldn't stand in place of a textbook but it's a nice resource. I showed it to a chemistry student who had been plodding through a lab-less course and she exclaimed, "Oh! This makes chemistry look interesting!" - It's very good for that.
The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments, by Robert Bruce Thompson, explains in tremendous detail how to set up a safe chemistry lab at home, and gives instructions for a number of intriguing-sounding experiments. Companion materials are sold here.
There are other books that lay out a number of suggestions for one-off science fair projects, but Thompson's is the book that assumes the reader wants to get seriously into the subject.
There are some books out there that present entertaining chemistry anecdotes for a general audience (Napoleon's Buttons, The Disappearing Spoon, The Radioactive Boy Scout, Mauve) but it would be a demanding job to extract much chemistry knowledge from them, so they don't make my list.
I cannot, however, resist linking to Ruskin's essay on The Work of Iron, on p. 453 of this PDF, as a charming presentation on chemistry.
I asked around for "the clearest book on chemistry ever" and my friend's husband wisely responded, "Bereishis 1:1-31," which is the best answer.
There are several board games out there that are designed to teach chemistry. The two that sound high school student-friendly to me (as opposed to having been designed for gamers) are Elementeo, which is based on Magic: the Gathering and assigns each element a personality; and Science Ninjas: Valence Plus. Elementeo is pretty but I suspect that Valence Plus involves more science in the actual game-play. (There's also a chemistry-themed version of Fluxx. Fluxx is a great game; but it offers less educational content than the other games listed here.)
There is a fabulous collection of labs here: Flinn Scientific: Chemical Demonstrations.
Conclusion
If someone would like to write a chemistry textbook that takes all the material of a standard high school textbook and presents it using the sensible approach and superb writing of The Wonder Book of Chemistry, the clarity of Chemistry: the Awesomest Science, and the attention to detail of Chemistry: Explore the Matter that Makes up Your World, I would buy a copy; and if you pull it all out of Bereishis, I will be your best friend.
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