Electrical Wizard - a review

Rusch, Elizabeth. 2013. Electrical Wizard: How Nikola Tesla Lit Up the World. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.  Ill. by Oliver Dominguez.


While Thomas Edison was busy lighting up big American cities with his new invention, Nikola Tesla was pondering the current that made it possible.  While watching a college professor demonstrate a new electrical machine,

Inspiration flashed.
Nikola realized that the motor didn't need to be run by direct current.  Alternating current, like the kind created by the hand crank, could power the motor. Sticking with alternating current would be simpler than converting to direct current -- and it would eliminate that awful sparking.

His professor scoffed, and when Nikola Tesla traveled to the United States to meet his hero, Thomas Edison scoffed, too.  Although he gave Tesla a job, Edison saw Tesla's alternating current (AC) idea as a direct competitor to the power grid he had already set up using direct current (DC).  The two men had a falling out and became rivals in the race to power the United States.

Despite Edison's attempts to discredit Tesla's AC, which Edison considered (or at least feigned to consider) more dangerous, it was Nikola Tesla's alternating current that became the standard for the US, due largely to its spectacular debut at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, the culminating event of Electrical Wizard: How Nikola Tesla Lit up the World.

Inside the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago
By Starks W. Lewis, Brooklyn, NY [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Oliver Dominguez' illustrations in graphite, acrylic, gouache and ink add a feeling of age and seriousness, and break up the lengthy small text.  Electrical Wizard is a great choice for those inventor reports assigned each year. (Teachers, please allow the picture books!)

Back matter includes:

• "Ahead of his Time" - a look at another Tesla invention - wireless transmission
• "Tesla vs. Edison: The Rivalry" - notes on the inventors' rivalry (see note)
• "Scientific Notes" - detailed, illustrated notes on AC and DC electricity and explanations of events featured in the book
• "Select Bibliography & Further Reading"

Though born in Serbia, Tesla eventually made New York his home, and it is home to the Tesla Science Center.

Note:
In Edison's defense, that he and/or his associates electrocuted an elephant with AC current is true (and in a rather gruesome footnote, he actually filmed the event), however, the elephant had killed three people and had already been condemned to die. Electrocution was considered a more humane method of death for animals than the alternatives of the time.  Edison is guilty of using this horrific circumstance in an attempt to gain commercial advantage over Tesla by using alternating current to execute the animal, thereby implying an inherent danger in AC. However, he is not guilty of killing the elephant or other animals without any cause or motive save his own financial gain, a point not necessarily made clear in Electrical Wizard.
  References: 

• 2003. "America's debt to Topsy." Economist 368, no. 8334: 33. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 16, 2013).
• Pollard, JJ 2010, 'The eccentric engineer', Engineering & Technology (17509637), 5, 15, p. 80, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 16 November 2013.

Bruce Springsteen and Frank Sinatra notwithstanding, Thomas Edison is one of New Jersey's most famous citizens. Though most know him for inventing the light bulb, he also invented most everything one would need to use a light bulb -  and most importantly, the system for delivering electricity to the lamp - in effect, the entire electrical system of his day.  He is also credited with inventing the phonograph and motion pictures. If you are in New Jersey, a trip to the National Park Service's Thomas Edison National Historic Park is an enlightening experience. (pun intended) ;)

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is hosted at NC Teacher Stuff, 
where you can check out other reviews of nonfiction books for children and young adults.

The Highway Rat - a review

As a very young girl, one of my favorite books was an old copy of The Fireside Book of Folk Songs. I loved songs with risk and daring.  I was especially fond of singing sea shanties, but my favorite song was "The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies, O!"  In my mind it was so exotic and exiting. If gypsies had come to my apartment with a wagon, I would have gone with them in a heartbeat!  My taste in poetry was similar, and one of my favorites was "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, first published in 1906.  A dramatic, narrative poem, "The Highwayman" is a tragic love story about a robber and a landlord's daughter.  Hardly a likely poem for an elementary school child, but I loved it.

That is why I was so excited when I saw the cover for The Highway Rat. I immediately knew that it was based on the Noyes poem.  I was ready to like it before I even opened the book, and I was not disappointed.

Donaldson, Julia.  2013. The Highway Rat. New York: Scholastic.

Illustrated by Axel Scheffler.
Review copy provided by the publisher.


Using the same rhyme scheme as the classic poem, "The Highwayman" (AABCCB), Julia Donaldson has done a spectacular job of remaining true to the meter, rhyme and mood of the original, while writing for a much younger audience.

The Highway Rat was a baddie.
     The Highway Rat was a beast.
He took what he wanted and ate what he took.
     His life was one long feast.
His teeth were sharp and yellow,
     his manners were rough and rude,
And the Highway Rat went riding --
     Riding -- riding --
Riding along the highway
     and stealing the travelers' food.

Accompanied by Axel Scheffler's vibrantly colored paintings, the story is bursting with energy - the eyes of the frightened animals wide with fear, the skies dark and foreboding. Heavy black outlining adds mood and shadow. The clever, "plucky" duck, however, offers readers the security that all will be well in the end. Her knowing look belies her simplistic dress.  It is she who leads The Highway Rat to his comeuppance and frees the rest of the animals from the rat's nightly thieving. He may not come upon the tragic end that Noyes' highwayman did, but the rat's larcenous ways do bring him to a tragic end,

As the animals rejoice and share the rat's plunder,

A thinner and grayer and meeker Rat,
     he robs on the road no more,
For he landed a job in a cake shop --
     A cake shop -- a cake shop --
And they say he still works in the cake shop,
     sweeping the cake shop floor.

I love this one! Little listeners will a flair for the dramatic will love it, too!

Poetry Friday is a weekly roundup of poetry posts and may feature original poems, favorite poems,  poetry book reviews, or poetry-related commentary and news.  Today's roundup is at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Odds, ends, and a request

I'm blogging over at the ALSC Blog today.  

If you want to chime in with the name of a new kids' book that you can't wait to read, join me there.

In other news, if you don't follow me on FB or Twitter, you may not know of a free book offer that should interest you.  For the first time ever, the National Book Foundation (bestower of the prestigious National Book Awards) is offering free e-book excerpts of all of the finalists for the National Book Award in all three categories: fiction, nonfiction, and young people's literature.  The excerpts have been released as a three book series titled: The Contenders, with a book for each category. This is a wonderful tool for familiarizing yourself with the books, getting a "flavor" of each finalist, preparing booktalks for kids, or deciding what to read next.  The free E-books are available in most formats. Full details may be found at http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2013_thecontenders.html#.UoF6cvmUTfU

And finally, a personal and totally non-book-related request:

My daughter is currently in an internship at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston (to say that she's thrilled would be an understatement).  The intern and co-op students at JSC have a Twitter account and are trying to reach 3,000 followers.  If you're on Twitter, please go there now and follow @NASAJSCStudents.  They're all working very hard and would love to share their activities with you.  Spread the word. Thanks.

The Great American Dust Bowl - a review

Brown, Don. 2013. The Great American Dust Bowl. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

In a slim (80-page), hardcover, graphic novel, Don Brown offers a compelling account of the causes, effects, and consequences of America's 19th century push into the Great Plains - first for ranching, then small farming enterprises, and finally, large-scale, motorized farming.  Years of drought combined with loss of prairie grassland that had sustained the American Indians and the wild buffalo herds, led to dust storms of epic proportions that lasted for a decade. Describing one storm, Brown writes,

On May 3, 1934, whirlwinds lifted 350 million tons of dirt from the Montana and the Dakotas' prairie, gathered them into gritty clouds that reached fifteen thousand feet, a height equal to twelve stacked Empire State Buildings. 

Enough dust to fill 1,500 modern supertankers blew East.

Dust fell like snow over Chicago.

Atlanta.

Boston.

Washington.

Midday Manhattan darkened beneath a dusty gray haze. Cars switched on their headlights to see. The Statue of Liberty seemed to disappear. Everywhere, dust: streets, sidewalks, grass, even the water in New York Harbor.

Panels of varying sizes, including double-spread pages, are presented primarily in sepia tones, denoting both the time period and the ever-present dirt.  Facts are presented in text boxes or within panels, in easy-reading Tim Sale Brush font, and dialogue (documented in the Source Notes and Selected Bibliography) appears in word bubbles.  Illustrations are pen and ink with "digital paint.  The hard-luck farmers are simply sketched, but convey seriousness and gravity.  Smiles can only be found on the "rainmaker," a snake oil salesman who profited from the sale of useless items that promised to bring rain, and on the faces of a small family who rejoices outside as rain finally arrives to break the drought.

When the rain came, it meant life itself. It meant a future.

The Great American Dust Bowl may be read quickly, but will not soon leave your mind. My library has cataloged this one as a young adult title, but it's certainly suitable for middle grades as well.  I highly recommend it.

• Title: Dust bowl farmer raising fence to keep it from being buried under drifting sand. Cimarron County, Oklahoma
• Creator(s): Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985, photographer
• Date Created/Published: 1936 Apr.
• Rights Advisory: No known restrictions. For information, see U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs(http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html)
• Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

• Title: Liberal (vicinity), Kan. Soil blown by dust bowl winds piled up in large drifts on a farm
• Creator(s): Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985, photographer
• Date Created/Published: 1936 March.
• Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
• Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Other reviews @

• The New York Times (by NYPL's Betsy Bird)
• The Nonfiction Detectives

Other outstanding books featuring the Dust Bowl Era:

• Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse - 1998 winner of the Newbery Medal and the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction
• The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan - 2010 winner of the Scott O'Dell Award and also a graphic novel
• Years of Dust by Albert Marrin

Other Don Brown books reviewed by Shelf-employed:

• America is Under Attack: September 11, 2001: The Day the Towers Fell
• All Stations! Distress!: April 12, 1915: The Day the Titanic Sank (reviewed on LibraryThing)
• Let it Begin Here!: April 19, 1775: The Day the American Revolution Began (reviewed on LibraryThing)

Looking for more reviews of nonfiction books? 

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is at Wrapped in Foil.

Short stories, short shrift, and free Kindle stories

In the world of reading, short stories get short shrift.  Perhaps it's because we don't have a shared body of popular, modern works that we can discuss with friends and family, or because there are few mainstream published collections, or because the only time we've read them was in school when we were forced to analyze them to death.Whatever the reason, I wish they were more popular, especially for young people and reluctant readers.

Recently, there have been two great efforts to get short stories into the hands of kids.

1. Jon Scieszka's Guys Read, are themed collections of short stories.  Vol. 1, Funny Business, Vol. 2, Thriller, and Vol. 3, Sports.  Stories are written by such heavy hitters as Christopher Paul Curtis, Kate DiCamillo, Adam Rex, and Jack Gantos, just to name a few. 
2. Kazu Kibuishi's Explorer series does for the graphic novel, what Scieszka's collections do for boy-themed stories. Vol. 1, The Mystery Boxes, and Vol. 2, The Lost Islands . Here, the premise is slightly different.  The stories aren't within a certain genre, rather they  feature a certain item - a mysterious box in Vol. 1, and a mysterious island in Vol. 2. These also feature big name artists, e.g., Jake Parker, Dave Roman, and Raina Telgemeier. (My book club kids want to Skype with Raina Telgemeier ... just throwing that out there')  

For a YA audience, my favorite collection of short stories is Kathi Appelt's, Kissing Tennessee: And Other Stories from the Stardust Dance.

Laura Sullivan
©Laura Sullivan

So, why am I going on about short stories today?  Because, in addition to writing middle-grade fantasy and young adult historical fiction, author Laura Sullivan (Under the Green Hill, Guardian of the Green Hill, Ladies in Waiting, Delusion), is also a master of the short story. 

While all of her stories are available for sale, she is making them available for free in Kindle e-book format for a limited time.  Below is a list of all the available stories.  

Two are written for young audiences  "Snake Plant" is a creepy tale (think "Little Shop of Horrors" creepy) and will appeal to every child who finds his mother overbearing (isn't that all of them?) and "Clever Elody" is a feel-good fairytale about brains, love, and perseverance. 

"Snake Plant"

In the children's horror story Snake Plant, a young boy longs for a pet – any pet – but has to make due with an exotic vine that helps him battle his controlling mother.

http://www.amazon.com/Snake-Plant-A-Short-Story-ebook/dp/B00DJX42W2

"Clever Elody"

 The romantic children's story Clever Elody features a poetic prince, and the poor girl who teaches him how to turn one borrowed chicken into perfect bliss.

http://www.amazon.com/Clever-Elody-ebook/dp/B00DMHGNSQ

 Mark your calendar and take advantage of these free short stories as they become available - or spring for a few dollars and buy them whenever you the mood strikes you.

Thanks, Laura! :)

Lana Halliday is a comedy for adults about a consummate meddler who saves her friend from a gold-digger.

(Note: I read this story as well.  It's a great yarn that, while modern, harkens back to classic stories of simpler times.)

Larval is an adult science fiction story about a dissolute young man who finds out that humans are only a larval stage of a vastly powerful organism.

In A Man of Kiri Maru, a scientist visiting an exotic island falls in love and must undergo a ritual involving the dangerous, man-sized Humboldt squid.

An Ideal Household Appliance is an adult science fiction story featuring an insect-loving genius obsessed with the woman next door.

In Louring Age, an independently-living ancient woman with a vivid past comes up with a scheme to fleece residents of a nursing home... and then finds herself trapped there, mistaken for someone with Alzheimer's.

The Butterfly Hunter is an adult horror story about a man who devotes his life to shooting butterflies.

An Artistic Temperament is a comedy about a sixteen year old girl on holiday who is traumatized (and liberated) when she meets a man pretending to be an artist who specializes in death scenes.