Timeless Thomas: How Thomas Edison Changed Our Lives - Softcover

Gene Barretta has written and illustrated several award-winning books for young readers, including Lincoln and Kennedy: A Pair to Compare, Neo Leo: The Ageless Ideas of Leonardo da Vinci and Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin, as well as Dear Deer and Zoola Palooza. He lives in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Leslie, and their son, Ben.

Gr 4-7-Distinctive cartoon illustrations infused with contemporary warmth and 21st-century humor compare electronic products used by today's youth on one side of the page to inventions developed in Thomas Edison's research labs and patented by him on the other. Boys recording music made with an electric guitar and keyboard are juxtaposed with Edison's tinfoil phonograph. A boy listening to his sound mixer, a girl with a multi CD player, and a girl listening to her iPod are compared to dictation machines and the first talking doll. A boy making photocopies of his face is compared to Edison's electric pen. Modern moviemaking is linked to Edison's Kinetograph, the first movie camera, the Kinetoscope for viewing images, and the Kinetephone for projecting sounds with images. Edison's discovery of radio waves, development of telegraph technology, and a useful light bulb with a community-wide power system are showcased. This will be a useful tool to introduce history and inventions to reluctant readers or students as the book stays tightly focused on Edison's work rather than on his personal life. Those looking for more biographical information about the scientist can try David Adler's A Picture Book of Thomas Alva Edison (Holiday House, 1996) or Melvin and Gilda Berger's What Makes the Light Bright, Thomas Edison? (Scholastic, 2007).-Laura Scott, Farmington Community Library, MIα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.