Thomas Edison’s mother yanked him out of school when his teacher called her forever-daydreaming son “addled.” Homeschooled from that day on, Tom devoured books and experimented in his chemistry lab until Mrs. Edison worried the family would be blown up. In this narrowly focused biography, readers will learn—despite the book’s title—that there was nothing magical about the man who patented 1,093 inventions. Edison was a hard worker who was curious about everything, studied diligently for years and was passionate about inventing, especially marketable objects (such as the phonograph and motion-picture cameras) he knew the world needed. Brown’s scratchy pen-and-ink drawings with muted watercolors successfully evoke the 19th-century American setting and reveal the industrious young Tom in action—pulling carrots in Michigan, selling newspapers on the Detroit train, printing his own newspaper, haunting telegraph offices, tinkering and, finally, gazing at his 1879 creation, the electric light bulb. This glimmer of the future inventor in his youth—sprinkled with quotations from Edison himself—may inspire a few daydreamers to get to work. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-547-19487-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of...
An international story tackles a serious global issue with Reynolds’ characteristic visual whimsy.
Gie Gie—aka Princess Gie Gie—lives with her parents in Burkina Faso. In her kingdom under “the African sky, so wild and so close,” she can tame wild dogs with her song and make grass sway, but despite grand attempts, she can neither bring the water closer to home nor make it clean. French words such as “maintenant!” (now!) and “maman” (mother) and local color like the karite tree and shea nuts place the story in a French-speaking African country. Every morning, Gie Gie and her mother perch rings of cloth and large clay pots on their heads and walk miles to the nearest well to fetch murky, brown water. The story is inspired by model Georgie Badiel, who founded the Georgie Badiel Foundation to make clean water accessible to West Africans. The details in Reynolds’ expressive illustrations highlight the beauty of the West African landscape and of Princess Gie Gie, with her cornrowed and beaded hair, but will also help readers understand that everyone needs clean water—from the children of Burkina Faso to the children of Flint, Michigan.
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of potable water. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17258-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
``Water is dew. Water is ice and snow.'' No matter what form it takes, seldom has plain old water appeared so colorful as in this rainbow-hued look at rain, dew, snowflakes, clouds, rivers, floods, and seas. Asch celebrates water's many forms with a succinct text and lush paintings done in mostly in softly muted watercolors of aqua, green, rose, blue, and yellow. They look as if they were created with a wet-on-wet technique that makes every hue lightly bleed into its neighbor. Water appears as ribbons of color, one sliding into the other, while objects that are not (in readers' minds) specifically water-like—trees, rocks, roots—are similarly colored. Perhaps the author intends to show water is everything and everything is water, but the concept is not fully realized for this age group. The whole is charming, but more successful as art than science. Though catalogued as nonfiction, this title will be better off in the picture book section. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-15-200189-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
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