A Picture Book of Thomas Alva Edison

Picture Book Biography

by David A. Adler, John Wallner (Illustrator), Alexandra Wallner (Illustrator)

His inventions included the phonograph, light bulb, and movie camera.

Genres: Biography, Picture Books, History, Nonfiction, Childrens

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

David Abraham Adler is an American children's author. He was born in New York City, New York in 1947. He graduated from Queens College in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics and education. For the next nine years, he worked as a mathematics teacher for the New York City Board of Education, while taking classes towards a master's degree in marketing, a degree he was awarded by New York University in 1971. In that same year, a question from his then-three-year-old nephew inspired Adler to write his first story, A Little at a Time, subsequently published by Random House in 1976. Adler's next project, a series of math books, drew on his experience as a math teacher. In 1977, he created his most famous character, Cam Jansen, originally featured in Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds, which was published that year.

Adler married psychologist Renee Hamada in 1973, and their first child, Michael, was born in 1977. By that time Adler had taken a break from teaching and, while his wife continued her work, he stayed home, took care of Michael, and began a full-time writing career.

Adler's son, Michael S. Adler, is now the co-author of several books with his father, including A Picture Book of Sam Adams, A Picture Book of John Hancock, and A Picture Book of James and Dolly Madison. Another son, Edward, was the inspiration for Adler's Andy Russell series, with the events described in the series loosely based on adventures the Adler family had with Edward's enthusiasm and his pets.

As of November 2008, Adler has three sons and two grandsons. He lives in Woodmere, New York.

(source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read to my son last night. He is almost 9 and very into biographies these days. Since we live in NJ now he wants to visit Thomas Edison's lab.

[Darlina Tato · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about Thomas Alva Edison and his life from childhood to death. He was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan Ohio. He has six siblings and his mother was a school teacher. Thomas was very curious and he would ask his parents a lot of questions every day. He got scarlet fever when he was eight and ended up death later in his life. In school Thomas asked lots of questions and the school moved him out because the teachers had no patience for him. At home Thomas set a lab in his room and tested lots of experiments. In 1869 Thomas worked for a stock company and he invented a machine to send minute-by-minute information on the price of stocks. He also invented the quadruplex, the telegraph system, and in 1877 he invented the phonograph. In 1879 he invented the electric light bulb with cotton thread inside. Lastly he invented the battery that is now used in cars. He died in 1931. This book has lots of colorful pictures showing each invention that Thomas made. The pictures are very colorful with lots of details and bright colors. This book would be good for secondary children between ages six and twelve. The book is about fifty pages but it is not had to read. The vocabulary is easy and this book would be great for a science class in elementary to read. I would recommend this book to a science teacher to talk about Thomas in the science class and talk about the experiments that Thomas did. Also I would recommend this book to every child who is interested in invention and the life of Thomas. This book was good and the pictures were amazing.

[Ann Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be an extremely interesting biography of Thomas Edison. The stories of his childhood showed his keen and curious nature. The books was clear and had excellent pacing to keep a child and adult's interest. I learned many new and interesting facts about this great inventor. This is a very enjoyable biography for children.

[Halee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a very nice and simple way of showing children all the inventions Thomas Edison came up with. There was just enough information and details, I thought. I, as the reader, was not bombarded with dates and other information that could potentially be irrelevant to the story. It was great. I would recommend it to first grade students and up.

[Lori Shook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good factual information on Edison in picture book format.

[Colleen]

It's Electrifying
Leveled Books - Lexile: 730

[Kiddo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, solid information. Better than I thought it would be.