ERNŐ RUBIK

Introducing the Hungarian inventor of the small handheld toy that has enthralled millions.

Beginning with her subject’s early interest as a solitary child in stacking things, folding paper, and solving puzzles, Sánchez Vegara traces young Ernő’s wandering career through art studies and on to teaching architecture. It was an interest in showing his students “how objects move and change shape” that prompted experiments in constructing the “strange and clever object” that made his name a household word. Readers curious about how Rubik’s Cubes are constructed will have to look elsewhere (or perhaps take one apart themselves), but after holding the inventor up as someone worthy of note (by “following his curiosity,” he found a way to share “the joy of solving, creating, and thinking in new ways” with the world), the author does supply some more specific biographical information at the end, with photos. The groups of big-headed cartoon figures in Javens’ illustrations are racially diverse, and later galleries of enthusiasts and young STEM-winders include one cuber in a wheelchair.

A salute as much to the spirit of curiosity as to one of its most surprising success stories.