Students can imitate scientists at work by conducting inquiry investigations in the classroom, thereby exhibiting a multitude of skills and competencies. As stated by Bransford and Donovan (2005), learning science as a process of inquiry involves students in observation, imagination, and reasoning about the phenomena under investigation. Rather than giving students "recipes for experiments," which might be described as hands-on activities with explicit step-by-step directions on how to collect data, involving students in inquiry investigations provides students opportunities to generate their own questions about everyday phenomena, design ways to collect data, use creative thinking to make inferences about their data, and propose possible explanations of the phenomena. This paper illustrates the specific elements of scientific inquiry that are essential features of an inquiry lesson. The authors state that science trade books can be a wonderful addition to conducting inquiry in the classroom, and can facilitate the inquiry process, provide accurate science content, and motivate applications to new topics. Incorporating science trade books with hands-on, inquiry science is an excellent way to facilitate students' questioning, observing, analyzing, and reporting skills. Trade books are defined as books published for a retail market and are available at bookstores and libraries. These books are accessible to teachers and can be used to supplement science teaching. The authors also provide examples of inquiry investigations supported by science trade books. (Contains 4 tables.)