Electrical Wizard

How Nikola Tesla
Lit Up The World

This post joins other
kidlit bloggers on the
Nonfiction Monday Roundup

and also joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Candlewick Press

(pub. 9.10.2013)  40 pages

A True Tale with 
A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Elizabeth Rusch
           and Illustrator: Oliver Dominguez

    

C haracter: NIKOLA TESLA

O verview from the jacket flap: 

"Move over, Thomas Edison! Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla takes center stage in the first-ever picture-book biography of the man responsible for lighting our lives with electricity...

Tesla faced many obstacles along the way, including the great American inventor Thomas Edison, who was a staunch defender of the direct-current electrical system. But Tesla worked tirelessly to proved that AC, not DC, was the wave of the future. He proved it at the Chicago World's Fair and at Niagara Falls - and his proof lives on today in a world transformed by his inventions ..."

T antalizing taste: 

     "The night of Nikola Tesla's birth, lightning zapped, crackled, and flashed overhead. For years after, booming thunder drew the poor Serbian boy to the window of his family's small house. Nikola gazed, mystified, as electrical bolts ricocheted across the sky.
      One evening, when he was three, Nikola stroked his cat, Macak. The cat's fur snapped with tiny sparks. 'What is it?' ...
     'Electricity,' his father explained...
     Enchanted by the sparking halo his hands had conjured, Nikola wondered what other magic he could perform."

and something more: The extensive back matter in Electrical Wizard includes a section called "Tesla vs. Edison: The Rivalry" which not only sets forth the rivalry, but also the harsh treatment Thomas Edison gave to Nikola Tesla. For example, "Though Edison dismissed Tesla's ideas about alternating current, he did hire the young engineer. For a year, Nikola toiled for Edison, often from 10:30 a.m. until five the next morning. Edison said to him, 'I have had many hardworking assistants but you take the cake.'  He promised to pay Tesla $50,000 to improve his direct-current motors. Tesla did, but when he tried to collect his pay, Edison just laughed. 'Tesla, you don't understand our American humor.' Nikola stormed out of Edison's office. The young engineer struggled financially for months, even digging ditches to feed himself."  Later, Edison "strove to squelch" any competition and projects from Tesla. Readers are certainly exposed to a different side of Thomas Edison.

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Miracle Mud

Lena Blackburne
and the Secret Mud

That Changed Baseball

This post joins Nonfiction Monday

hosted today at Wendie's Wanderings

and also joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Millbrook Press / Lerner Publishing

(pub. 1.1.2013) 32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: David A. Kelly

     and Illustrator: Oliver Dominguez

C haracter: Lena Blackburne

O verview from the publisher: 

     "Lena Blackburne loved baseball. He watched it, he played it, he coached it. But he didn't love the ways players broke in new baseballs. Tired of soggy, blackened, stinky baseballs, he found a better way. Thanks to a well-timed fishing trip and a top-secret mud recipe, Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud was born. For seventy five years, baseball teams have used Lena's magic mud to prepare baseballs before every game...Lena's mud went from a riverbank to the major leagues and all the way to the Hall of Fame." 

T antalizing taste: 

"Splooootch! He stepped into some dark brown

mud. It was soft and gooey. Lena’s boot stuck in

the mud. He slooooooooowly pulled it out.

Lena had an idea.

He reached down and scooped up some of the

dark brown mud. It looked smooth and creamy

like chocolate pudding. But it felt gritty.

Lena took the mud to the ballpark." 

                       

and something more: What a great concept for a children's book -- mud meets baseball! And I enjoyed reading the background and mystery behind the Miracle Mud in the Author's Note: "While baseball mud is used during every game from spring training to the World Series, the mud harvesting season starts in July. [The Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud] crew take a boat out to their secret mud hole. They scoop up hundreds of pounds of mud and bring it back to shore. Then comes the super-secret part: they store the mucky brown mud in barrels over the winter Perhaps something special happens in the barrels We don't know. And they won't tell."  

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