Super Scientists: 40 inspiring icons

by Anne Blanchard, Tino (Illustrations)

The biggest discoveries…the most inquiring minds…the 40 most inspiring super scientists of all time are here! Learn how these scientists shaped the world in this fact-packed book from the 40 Inspiring Icons series.

From Galileo Galilei's terrific telescope discoveries , to Louis Pasteur's victorious vaccinations, to Ada Lovelace's cracking computer codes , discover how each of these scientists spent their lives asking questions and making leaps and bounds in the world of science and technology . Beginning with the Ancient Greek philosopher Thales, who discovered geometry and astronomy, right up to the modern astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has popularized complex scientific theories through the use of simple language, these are the 40 super scientists to be learned about by all :

Thales; Pythagoras; Aristotle; Euclid; Archimedes; Zhang Heng; Hypatia of Alexandria; Brahmagupta; Avicenna; Alhazen; Roger Bacon; Nicolaus Copernicus; Galileo Galilei; Johannes Kepler; Isaac Newton; William Harvey; Rene Descartes; Antoine Lavoisier; Mary Anning; Michael Faraday; James Clerk Maxwell; Charles Darwin; Gregor Mendel; Louis Pasteur; Dmitri Ivanovich Medeleev; Ada Lovelace; David Hilbert; Marie Curie; Ernest Rutherford; Albert Einstein; Niels Bohr; Alfred Wegener; Alan Turing; Rosalind Franklin; HGP and the Human Genome; Vera Rubin; Francoise Barre-Sinoussi; Tim Berners-Lee; Stephen Hawking; Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Each spread presents a single scientist, highlighting key facts about their life , the scientific advances they made , the applications for their discoveries , and the surrounding historical and social context , along with a fun, illustrated depiction of them that calls out elements of ife and the observational instruments they used.

Each is a pioneer of their age, but which scientist do you think is truly out of this world?

Each book in the 40 Inspiring Icons series introduces readers to a fascinating non-fiction subject through its 40 most famous people or groups. Explore these other great topics through their most interesting People of Peace , Greek Gods and Heroes , Soccer Stars , Fantastic Footballers , Music Legends , and Black Music Greats .

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, History

96 pages, Hardcover

Published February 5, 2019

Reviews

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 4 out of 5]

4★
"Wonder, Question, Discover"

This children’s picture book of scientists begins with Thales from about 600 B.C. in Ancient Greece to Neil deGrasse Tyson today. Each entry is colourful, with a large cartoon of a scientist, surrounded by small illustrations and text boxes of facts and remarks.

It’s a great idea, and the artwork is appealing. The text is broken up into bite-sized chunks that make it easy to read and remember. Perfect for readers with a short attention span.

I gather this has been translated from the French, and my preview copy shows Hervé Guilleminot and Jérôme Masi as author and illustrator. I don’t know where Anne Blanchard fits in.

The translation mostly seems fine, but there are a lot of misspellings and typographical errors. The text boxes in the PDF version I have show texts in varying fonts and styles, sometimes to make things stand out, but sometimes to fit in more text than the box will comfortably contain. In the latter cases, words are running together and hard to read.

If you’ve ever fooled around with fonts on a computer, you will see some “narrow” styles that compress letters and squeeze in more words. This book is designed for children and young readers – people who need all the help they can get to interpret marks on a page and convert them to words and then to thoughts in their minds. Anything that hinders that process needs to be fixed.

As you can see, the titles on each page are very pretty, but it’s a stylised cursive (running) writing rather than straight printing, so the S is just one more hurdle for a very young child or a slow reader.

As I’ve said, mine is a preview copy, and I hope the editors and publishers correct the errors. I have mentioned them here, because the pages I'm sharing below may include some, and you might wonder why I like the book, which I do. . . mostly.

Thales, c.600 B.C., Ancient Greece and Turkey, The first scientist


Archimedes, 297-212 B.C., Syracuse (now Italy), The first engineer


Avicenna, 980-1037, Iran, The good doctor



Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642, Italy, The stargazer



Neil deGrasse Tyson, NY USA, The enthusiast!

Here’s the list of the scientists, including some whose names I didn’t know (but probably should), and many who are household names today, like Aristotle, Darwin, and Einstein (who is pictured sticking his tongue out, which he was famous for doing in photos).

1. Thales
2. Pythagoras
3. Aristotle
4. Euclid
5. Archimedes
6. Zhang Heng
7. Hypatia of Alexandria
8. Brahmagupta
9. Avicenna
10. Alhazen
11. Roger Bacon
12. Nicolaus Copernicus
13. Galileo Galilei
14. Johannes Kepler
15. Isaac Newton
16. William Harvey
17. René Descartes
18. Antoine Lavoisier
19. Mary Anning
20. Michael Faraday
21. James Clerk Maxwell
22. Charles Darwin
23. Gregor Mendel
24. Louis Pasteur
25. Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev
26. Ada Lovelace
27. David Hilbert
28. Marie Curie
29. Ernest Rutherford
30. Albert Einstein
31. Niels Bohr
32. Alfred Wegener
33. Alan Turing
34. Rosalind Franklin
35. HPG and the Human Genome
36. Vera Rubin
37. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
38. Tim Berners-Lee
39. Stephen Hawking
40. Neil Degrasse Tyson

Thanks, of course, to NetGalley and Quarto Books / Wide Eyed Editions, for the preview copy of what I hope will be a good finished product.
#SuperScientists #NetGalley

[La Coccinelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is pretty much a wreck from start to finish. The illustrations are ugly. The text is riddled with typos and missing spaces. It also has a number of outright errors. I don't even know who wrote this thing! The front cover credits Anne Blanchard and Tino, but the first page lists Hervé Guilleminot and Jérôme Masi (they wrote and illustrated another book in the series, so maybe that's yet another error). Seriously... this is one of the sloppiest non-fiction books for kids I've ever read.

Let's look at some of my notes:

Oh, yes. The text states that Alexander the Great brought things back from his travels to his friend Aristotle. Apparently, Alexander the Great made it to the Americas at some point, because the illustration shows him gifting a saguaro cactus!

Zhang Heng is credited with being the first person to realize that the moon reflects light from the sun. Except--oops!--the book already credited Thales with that.

Eggs don't have "yokes". I shouldn't have to explain this one.

The page on Descartes is just confusing. He's supposedly all about "reason"... but then he's also apparently convinced that there's an "evil demon" running around affecting our perceptions. Sounds... reasonable?

Right. The locations. If anyone was born in England (no matter when), the book listed the location as Great Britain. But if they were born in Scotland, the location was... Scotland. (Yeah, I don't get it, either. Since when is Scotland not part of Great Britain?) And then the book goes on to make mention of someone being born in the Czech Republic... in 1884. Pick a convention and stick to it: either use the location names as they were at the time, or use all current location names. Don't mix and match.

The Pasteur page is disgusting, ignoring his ethical issues and continuing to help him steal credit for other people's work. He was not the first to come up with the idea of washing hands to prevent disease. Credit for that should go to Ignaz Semmelweis... but he's not even mentioned. (The poor guy never got any credit in his own lifetime, either, and was laughed out of medicine for daring to suggest that maybe doctors should wash their hands between doing autopsies and delivering babies.) Pasteur also practiced medicine on children without a medical licence. But I guess including that would've made him look like kind of a dick.

The book is also heavily skewed toward males. There are seven women in this book, and thirty-three men... which is bad enough. It gets even worse when we get to Rosalind Franklin, who helped discover the structure of DNA. Her page has ten little blurbs of information... but only six are actually about her. The other four are about the men who stole the credit for her work and (rather ironically) about how women are overlooked in science in general!

The information that is included in the text is also kind of weak. Sometimes it's so vague that it doesn't even seem to apply to the person that's being talked about. When I read a book like this, I want information about the people... not vague, random tidbits about tangentially related stuff.

This book was apparently published in French first, but that's no excuse for the absolutely shoddy translation. I mean, the translation itself isn't terrible, but the resulting text is so full of typos that I question whether it was actually done by a human.

Faraday also discovered that an element called red benzene, transformed chlorine gas into a liquid, created optical glasses, light and wrote chemistry textbooks!

Well, that's clear as mud.

Aside from sentences that don't make any sense, at least one just sort of ends in mid thought:

Darwin went further still when he claimed that humans and monkeys share a common ancestor which.

Which... what? Don't leave me hanging!

I expect a lot more from non-fiction, especially in books aimed at children. There's no way I'd give this one to a child, no matter how interested they are in science. There are other, better books out there, ones that have better editing and don't relegate women to the shadows of history (while simultaneously complaining about doing that very thing).

Not recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wide Eyed Editions for providing a digital ARC.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very clever. One of a number of book titles in a series to show the who’s who or the world’s best.
Super Scientists is a good place to start and to reflect on the potential of such a series. For each scientist listed chronologically we get a potted history of their life and achievements. This is done with inspiring artwork and cartoon figures to capture the very essence of these people and their claim to fame. They are reduced in the process to sound bites and snippets easy to digest and remember the facts.
Each page could be contracted to a double-sided playing card and we could be playing top trumps with the movers and shakers of scientific nobility.
It is a fun addition to any library and will teach anyone who reads it some basic facts that will stick. The hope would be it that it could lead the curious mind to search further. The book itself does not help in this process; I guess the internet is the now expected jumping off place. However, a resume of biographies or books around their subjects might have helped direct to less able student.
This perhaps classified the book as a work of fun more than a serious scientific guide but either way it it promotes interests and shares rich facts it has begun to serve both purposes.

[Tintaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

2500 anni di storia della scienza ripercorsi tramite quaranta figure fondamentali e le loro scoperte: dall'antica Grecia a chi ancora oggi studia e divulga, quaranta tavole riassumono i passi in avanti fatti in ogni disciplina, dalla medicina alla matematica all'astronomia alle geologia, con note brevi ma interessanti sull'ambiente e la vita privata degli scienziati citati.

Un'unica cosa dispiace - ma è un vecchio dolore: vedere quante poche donne (e quanto di recente, con pochissime eccezioni) si siano fatte largo in questi campi.

Consigliatissimo per esplorare insieme ai più piccoli idee e scoperte, e approfondire man mano a seconda delle loro inclinazioni.

[Etienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good little book to discover scientist from our history. Well summarize, with illustrations and kind of graphical presentation. Easy to understand and perfect for kids to learn about those scientist but also to learn who invented, and where it came from, some of the concept or theories they learn in school. Well done!

[Jax · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book starts at the beginning and I mean the beginning: 600BC and 580BC respectively both in Greece with Thales and Pythagorus. I was familiar with both their theories but I knew very little about them as people.

I was already looked forward to reading more.

The book includes:
Thales
Pythagoras
Aristotle
Euclid
Archimedes
Zhang Heng
Hypatia of Alexandria
Brahmagupta
Avicenna
Alhazen
Roger Bacon
Nicolas Copernicus
Galileo Galilei
Johannes Kepler
Isaac Newton
William Harvey
Rene Descartes
Antoine Lavoisier
Mary Anning
Michael Faraday
James Maxwell Clark
Charles Darwin
Gregor Mendel
Louis Pasteur
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleeve
Ada Lovelove
David Hilbery
Marie Curie
Ernest Rutherford
Albert Einstein
Niels Bohr
Alfred Wegener
Alan Turing
Rosalind Franklin
HPG and the Human Genome
Vera Rubin
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi
Tim Berners-Lee
Stephen Hawking
Neil Degrasse Tyson

Each section is easy to read and very well presented. With a biography and key facts for each person. It was good for matching facts (such as The Golden Ratio, displacement theory, heliocentrism, electromagnetism, periodic table, the discovery of DNA, and much more) to their respective inventor.

A great springboard for further science reading.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Thank you so much the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary electronic copy in return for an honest review.

[Yai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's start giving thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Quarto Knows for giving me the opportunity to read this book. And I want to excuse myself for taking so much time to review it. This book is a short illustration book about the greatest Scientist in history. This book is good if you are trying to learn little details about the most prominent Scientifics in history. Is a cute and good way to learn more about those who made so many thing in our daily life possible, even those who some of us want to kill (even tho they are dead) just because they invented math and geometry, etc. Being a chemistry student I find this a good way to keep in mind what those Scientifics did and what we have to thank them for. Besides that the illustrations are really cute and kind of funny but it helps you get everything together and remind little details that no class tells us about. But, the part that made me read it, even if it isn't why they actually wrote it for, is wanting to see if you could give this book to a child, and I think you can. Maybe a child of 8 years old and up, but even at that time I think is important for kids to learn about the ones that made so many things possible. I think is a great idea and I really want to read the other five (5) books presented at the end of this one.

[Claire Lyons · Rating 5 out of 5]

We really enjoyed this book, I had thought it would only interest my older children 10 & 8 but in fact we all found the information well presented and fun to read so everyone joined in. The illustrations are very funky and clear so my other kids were also keen to hear about these amazing and groundbreaking scientists. I also learnt quite a few things, which means the book gets my thumbs up too.

[KayKay · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Super Scientists" is an excellent addition to the "40 Inspiring Icons" series.
The authors carefully picked some of the most iconic and pioneering scientists in human history from 4th B.C. to modern time whose accomplishments have shaped the sciences of philosophy, biology, physics, mathematics, chemistry, technology and so forth. Some of the names are highly recognizable while the rest are less widely known to the general public. "Super Scientists" is a great picture book, for children and adults, to acknowledge the achievements of the scientists which have affected our lives one way or the other.

Minimalist artworks, brief but succinct information, and clean layout make this collection a wonderful intro book about influential scientists. Definitely a great read.

[Sayo -bibliotequeish- · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a great book for any child interested in science.
Bright pictures. Bullet point facts. Accomplishments and opposition.
A fast read with a lot of information

[January Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

After discovering this is a series, I am definitely getting them for my children. I learned quite a bit as well. A great way for your kids to learn!

[Dev · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an ARC copy of this book from NetGalley

This is a children's book that gives a very brief overview of / introduction to 40 important scientists from the past 2,000+ years. Each scientist gets a two page spread that looks roughly like this:



It was probably a little bit simplistic for me as an adult reader as I had heard of most [but not all!] of these scientists either from school or from other books like this. I think it would be a fun and visually interesting book to get younger readers interested in science though.

My one complaint would be that there were not a lot of women or people of color featured. I understand that a lot of women in particular have been kept out of or erased from science over the years, and I did like the women she included, but I felt like maybe she could have dug a bit deeper or maybe featured a few more modern women scientists. Also there was a point where she basically said 'there was a large portion of history where major scientific advancements were made by Arab or Indian scientists' and then featured like 2 or 3 of them before going to back to largely white European men. I didn't detract any stars from my rating because of this, but I was hoping that there would maybe be a few more diverse or unknown scientists represented. Although I guess for a children's book the thought might have been to keep it more mainstream.

[Sophie Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last summer, Sophie immersed herself in the 40 Inspiring Icons series from Wide Eyed Editions, so she was delighted to hear that a new volume had been released in the series: Super Scientists.

These books are packed with short, fact-filled biographies of 40 famous people or groups from their subject, ordered in roughly chronological order. Super Scientists begins with Thales who was born in Ancient Greece in 600 B.C. and brings itself up-to-date with modern-day scientists including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Stephen Hawking, and Neil Degrasse Tyson. Each biography is illustrated cartoon style and filled with facts about their personal lives, careers, and important discoveries.

Sophie found herself disappointed by the lack of women included in the book (seven out of the 40 people featured are female) but wonders how much of this is simply due to the lack of records regarding female scientists in antiquity, because many of the names she would have hoped to see are there: Mary Anning, Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie, and even Hypatia of Alexandria. Still, there are many more who could have been added to bring the percentage up to at least 25% female.

Sophie was pleased to note that at least a handful of non-Western scientists had been included, such as Zhang Heng, Brahmagupta, and ibn al-Haytham (better known as Alhazen) – although again, they only account for a very small percentage of the book, leaving the vast majority of its pages for white men. This is always a difficult issue in books of this nature because no one can deny that names like Newton, Darwin, or Einstein deserve places in a book of famous scientists, but it is critical to find a balance between loading the book with the same white male faces to the detriment of lesser-known diverse ones and making sure those important contributions are recognized.

[Paul Franco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like previous books in these series, particularly the Greek mythologicals and the music and soccer stars, there’s little cartoon icons of each scientist in the table of contents. You can see it trying to draw kids in, but it’s hard to take seriously.
The pages are chock full of small infographs, mostly anecdotes, and a larger version of the cartoon icon.
Happy to say I learned some things, and scientists I’d never heard of.
Archimedes is shown moving a lever with one finger. Funny.
Hypatia is even more my hero(ine) now after finding out some new facts.
Pattern: a lot of early scientists had scientist parents. Then you get Kepler, whose father was a mercenary and mother was burned as a witch.
“Michael Faraday, the Electromaniac!” I think he would have liked that.
Ends with Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is an interesting inclusion, as it says he’s famous for popularizing science rather than for a discovery or such. In that case, Carl Sagan should have been included as well.
3.5 pushed up to 4/5

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Super Scientists: 40 Inspiring Icons' by Anne Blanchard with illustrations by Tino is a brief look at some famous scientists for young curious readers.

In chronological order starting with Thales and ending with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the reader will learn about all kinds of scientists. From mathematicians to physicists and philosophers, the book explores each persons major contribution. There is brief biographical information and a famous quote included.

I had fun reading about these scientists, many that I knew about and a few that I didn't. The illustration are fun and the page layout is in easy bite-sized chunks of text. It works better as a quick overview to gain interest in further study I think.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Quarto Publishing Group - Wide Eyed Editions, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an electronic ARC from Quarto Publishing Group through NetGalley.
Blanchard presents brief bios of 40 scientists throughout history. She begins with Thales in the 4th century BC and finishes with de Grasse Tyson in current times. Both male and female scientists are included and various disciplines are covered.
Text boxes are used to present information about their life and work as well as other activities taking place while they lived.
This book is designed for elementary level readers. The simple style of presenting small portions of information in separate blocks will draw them in. The illustrations are colorful and help the reader understand about each person.
A great starting place to encourage further reading and research on specific scientists.

[J. d'Merricksson · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the distant past, to modern day, Super Scientists introduces young readers to forty scientists who helped shape the world. Among the are Pythagoras, Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Curie, Hawking, and Tyson. Each of these illustrious personages has a two page spread with facts about their life and discoveries, along with historical context, and applications for their discoveries. The artwork was amusing, and the material clear and concise. I read this with my cubs and we all enjoyed it. I even learned some new things!

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Quarto Publishing for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review

[Alicia]

Totally enjoy this series as I've already said with an informative topic, well-researched and digestible information about each of the 40 scientists that both help understand their contributions but also what they had to overcome to get there whether it was being the first to think of it, disprove someone else's theory, or create an element!

The illustrations, layout, and vocabulary are "super".

[Kim Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good introduction for kids. It made me want to learn more about the scientists and facts mentioned. I like the timeline at the end.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super Scientists 40 Inspiring Icons by Anne Blanchard is a powerful,

interesting children's book about the most important scientists existed in our world.
Starting from the most remote past, so Greeks, with Thales, Archimedes, Euclid, for arriving at our days with Einstein, this colored, nice book will explain to the littlest ones why these genials men passed at the history thanks to a brief biography in grade to reveal who they were, for analyzing then in anotherabox their discoveries in the various scientific fields. Each scientist is powerfully imagined by the illustrator, and I can tell you that this book will not just affect children so badly but it will introduce to them science in an amicable, close approach, in grade to let them fall in love for it. Waiting for the next Einstein/Hawkings...


I thank NetGalley and Quarto for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

[George1st · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really enjoyable and educational time was taken up learning about 40 of history's great scientists.Listed in chronological order starting with Thales and ending with Neil Degrasse Tyson the reader is presented with a brief biography of their life and achievements together with some trivia. The graphics are very good and the way the pages are set out makes it easy to take in the available information.

This is certainly an eclectic selection and we have representatives from all the scientific fields. There are some well known names here, Newton, Darwin and Einstein immediately come to mind but I must admit that there were quite a few others that I'm ashamed to say that I was completely unfamiliar with. It was also good to see that there was an increased female representation as the years progressed although still unbalanced.

For the target children audience this book will I'm sure provide a basic introduction and understanding of some of the leading scientists and their importance which will hopefully prompt the inquiring mind to seek out further reading. Overall an enjoyable hour or so was spent with this book and even if you are not the targeted children audience I think that you may well find this a rather fun read.

This book is one of the '40 Inspiring Icons' series of titles which introduces the reader to a non-fiction subject by providing a brief history of its 40 most famous people or groups. Having previously read and enjoyed "Music Legends" I would certainly think it may be worth your while if you have children to seek out other titles in this series.

[joyce w. laudon · Rating 4 out of 5]

For young students with inquiring minds...learn about some of the world's most famous scientists in this easy to read (or browse through) resource. It deserves a spot on school library shelves and the home shelves of students who will be fascinated by these interesting thinkers.

The book is arranged in two page spreads and is organized historically. We start with Thales while the final entry is on Neil Degrasse Tyson. There are men, women and those from many different countries represented and acknowledged.

For each scientist there are short entries including topics such as biography, amazing, famous for, etc. Accomplishments of each are acknowledged.

One of the things that I enjoy about reviewing children's books is that my horizons are broadened as well. There were many scientists that I knew in this book but also some with whom I just had a first encounter, like Thales. The time that I spent with this excellent resource was well spent.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for helping me to learn more. You will too!

[RedRobinXXX · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am reviewing this book for Anne Blanchard, Quarto Publishing and NetGalley who gave me a copy of their book for an honest review
A book which introduces children to many notable scientists - many of whom I hadn't heard of before.

[Laura Duffy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful addition to the current collection of inspiring icons that exist. If something is not broken then there's no need to fix it and it sticks with the tried and tested method of the previous books. A really inspiring and enjoyable read.