For Now & Ben, the modern inventions of Benjamin Franklin by Gene Barretta, Square Fish, 2008.
A thoroughly enjoyable informational book! Even I learned some new things. I thought that the cartoonish drawings made the information more accessible to the target audience, and it also reinforces the fact that this is a fun informational book, not one to cite for a research paper! I think this book can be categorized as a concept book, as it looks at one topic - how Ben Franklin's original experimental designs and inventions have been adapted and modernized and are widely used today. I see this as instructional when a teacher needs to show how to connect historical information to modern day. I imagine this is a concept that is taught in the elementary level.
As interesting as it was, with its light shaded pages of active scenes, I did find the second double page spread after the title page, and the last futuristic city scene to be rather busy. I realize that I have little experience with elementary education, but it seemed as though there were some cute adaptations for the inventions covered in the book, but mostly it was just a lot of unnecessary movement. The other drawback were the pages dealing with the glass harmonica as this wasn't part of the main focus of the book.
I did appreciate the picture-biography of event in his life on both the front and back pages.
Overall, a book that I would add to my collection if I taught elementary ed.
Liz
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from Marilyn
ReplyDeleteBlog for, Now and Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin, by Gene Barretta, Henry Holt and Company 2006
I wasn't quite sure how this book would be informational because it is a picture book, until after I read it. From the first page, this book shows what a truly intelligent and resourceful man Ben franklin was. I think I often only refer back to his leadership in the American Revolution and not to the many other things he accomplished in his lifetime.
Although not stated in the text formally, the cobblestones in the picture on the second page of this picture book show the many titles Ben Franklin had in his life which led to the inventions we still use today.
I remember learning about Ben flying the kite and discovering that the lightning was electricity, but what I had learned was that he had a key on the string, not a metal wire on the top of the kite that gathered the electricity. Amazing how something so simple, led to the invention of the lightning rod. How many homes and buildings over these last couple of hundred years have been saved because of this?
The things I didn't know about were that he invented bifocal glasses, was the first to print political cartoons in the newspaper, Invented the grabber device used in stores to get things from high shelves, and so many others!
Informational books as stated in our textbook, are nonfiction and are traditionally not meant for pleasure reading. They have a reputation for being boring to read because they are largely crammed with facts and have little or no drawings or pictures to illustrate those facts.
This is definitely not true of this book. I think this book would be an asset to any History teacher's bookshelf. Although it's more a picture book, the pictures are colorful and informative themselves. I think the author was clever to use the picture book format to inform children on the many inventions of Ben Franklin and how we still use them today. This is a book I think students in an 8th grade American History class would learn a lot from. A History teacher could build a lot of cross content lessons from this book. One I am recommending our library invest in!
November 1, 2009 1:22 PM
In response to Marilyn's post to Now & Ben by Gene Barretta, Square Fish, 2008.
ReplyDeleteOnce again you have seen aspects of a book that I did not even consider!I had made a mental note on the cobblestones, but then got caught up in the fascinating factoids about his inventions. He was an amazing founding father, one that is perhaps sidelines in our rush to fit so much content into our school year. Yes, I agree that the cobblestones were an imaginative way to add information without adding boring text.
There are many examples of creative information packaging in this book, and I was not panning it by a long shot. The expressive faces tell children that his inventions make our lives more satisfying (except for daylight savings picture!)The city layout both old and modern helps to show the building as a young person would know them.
Yes, i think this is a valuable book to have in classrooms.
Liz
Liz, I agree with your comment on the glass harmonica. It did seem out of place for a book that showed some of the more functional inventions that have been adapted for modern use.
ReplyDeleteI certainly would not advise students to use this book for research, but I might share it with them as a springboard from which to start. I think the cartoonish illustrations could engage and introduce Ben Franklin in such a way that students might reflect back, when doing research, and find that he is much more interesting than some old stale history books have led us to believe.
As I stated in my first blog, there are so many other things that Ben Franklin invented that was never mentioned in a history book unless it was somehow relevent to America's fight for independence. Perhaps, introducing some of those other inventions might spark a student's interest and carry it over to a Science class. There a student could take the initial invention use the same materials as Franklin and hypothesize if it would be as effective in today's world. They could then adapt the invention for today's world and further adapt it for the future to see if it would still be as useful 10 or 20 years from now?