All Charged Up!: Big Ideas That Changed the World #5

Big Ideas That Changed the World #5

by Don Brown

Award-winning author-illustrator Don Brown explores the history of electricity in this installment of the Big Ideas That Changed the World series.
 
In 600 BCE, the Greek mathematician Thales observed a seemingly strange amber, when rubbed with a cloth, had the ability to attract lightweight objects like feathers, straw, and leaves. He had unknowingly discovered an electric charge. His experiments wouldn’t be picked back up until about 2,000 years later, when another curious mind, inspired by the Greek word for amber (elektron), declared the rubbed object to have an invisible electricity. From phones to light bulbs to electric cars, electricity is something we can’t live without today.
 
Narrated by Jagadish Chandra Bose, a Bengali pioneer in radio technology from the previous century, All Charged Up! is the fascinating story of both tireless experimentation and accidental discovery, of inspiring human progress and dramatic scientific rivalries. Full of facts and colorful historical figures, this nonfiction graphic novel highlights key inventors and breakthroughs, through the earliest discoveries to the Age of Electricity to today, Musschenbroek’s Leyden jar, which proved that electricity could be stored; founding father Benjamin Franklin’s famous experiment using a kite as a lightning rod (don’t try this at home!); a fierce competition between two Italian scientists that resulted in the first battery (and inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein); and Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison’s War of the Currents; uses of wind and solar energy, and many more. Breaking down concepts like atoms, current, electromagnetism in a kid-friendly, accessible way, acclaimed author-illustrator Don Brown demonstrates how our world became plugged in and connected by electricity.
 
Big Ideas That Changed the World is a graphic novel series that celebrates the hard-won succession of ideas that ultimately changed the world. Humor, drama, and art unite to tell the story of events, discoveries, and ingenuity over time that led humans to come up with a big idea and then make it come true.

Genres: Science, History, Nonfiction, Middle Grade, Graphic Novels, Historical

128 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 9, 2024

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Don Brown is the award-winning author and illustrator of many picture book biographies. He has been widely praised for his resonant storytelling and his delicate watercolor paintings that evoke the excitement, humor, pain, and joy of lives lived with passion. School Library Journal has called him "a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies." He lives in New York with his family.

Reviews

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I love this book! It's a very accessible account of the discovery of electricity and it's relationship to magnets. It also describes the invention of batteries, AC and DC currents, and much, much more! Before reading this book, I could name just Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Nikolas Tesla as key players in the development of knowledge about electricity. Now I know about these (and many more) key inventors:

Luigi Galvani (whom I should have remembered because of the galvanization term and Galvani's influence on Mary W. Shelley, author of Frankenstein).

Alessandro Volta (whom I should have known because of the term voltage based on his name)

Samuel Morse (whom I knew from Morse code, but I did not think through that his invention would be included as a technology dependent on electricity. Duh!)

Heinrich Hertz (who discovered radio, another name that I should have anticipated seeing)

Jagadish Chandra Bose (are the Bose speakers named after him?)

As the book progresses, a woman inventor / scientist appears, Lise Meitner (discovered fission),

The book contains short paragraphs that have a lot of drawings of these inventors and their inventions interspersed. The backmatter includes a fabulous timeline and a special biography will a full-page picture of Jagadish Chandra Bose, who was a multi-talented scientist who contributed to several fields of science. He should be counted with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, but being from Bangladesh makes him less visible to westerners.

If you know a kid who loves science, a kid who has ever stuck a piece of silverware into a light socket, get them this enlightening book. I loved it, and I am thinking that curious young readers will love it, too.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A find story-of-electricity if not especially compelling. I did appreciate some additional stories of lesser known figures. And a slightly better description of why Franklin didn't die with hit kite flying experiment (but someone else did). As always with a book like this you have to choose between to low of a level and two high of a level. This pulled that off but still was only a bit better than okay. 3.5 of 5

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Brown is the coolest. This series is a spectacular graphic novel series that features "big ideas that changed the world" and what better big idea than that of electricity, voltage, and power.

Brown moves competently and authoritatively through the people involved at different points in time and places in specific discoveries that all-told, changed the world. He doesn't make a big production out of any one idea, which makes it balanced and even from start to finish.

I was particularly taken with the page on Orsted delivering a lecture only to have a (pun intended) lightbulb moment where he walked out of his own lecture because he needed to work on an idea that came to him while presenting.

The other was about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-- "But let me for a moment return to my other interest, the world of science fiction. Galvani's nephew Giovanni Aldini continued to explore electricity and living things. He applied electricity to all sorts of dead animals, making them move and twist. When he did the same to a dead person... well, let's just say that people who saw the gruesome display never forgot it. And news of it spread, reaching the ears of Englishwoman Mary Shelley. It inspired her to write the tale of a scientist using electricity to bring a dead person back to life. You might have heard of it-- Frankenstein. It's been said that Shelley modeled the scientist in her book not on Aldini, but on Humphrey Davy, a well-known English chemistry scientist of the day. And Humphrey Davy indeed plays a role in our story of electricity."

[Becky B · Rating 5 out of 5]

A graphic novel history of humans harnessing electricity over the past couple hundred years.

I like that Brown researched and included some of the inventors often left out of these histories in the past because they were people of color. He has a Bangla inventor who made huge breakthroughs that led to the radio be the narrator for the book. Brown does an excellent job of tracing the path to modern electronics and explaining the science along the way. The former science teacher in me was quite satisfied with it. If you have money for only 1 electricity book for a middle grade reader, pick this one.

Notes on content:
Language: None
Sexual content: None
Violence: Brown does talk about some scientists messing with powers they didn't understand and how one man died in an ill-conceived experiment. (Not graphic.) He also talks about how they discovered muscles in frogs and human cadavers could be activated by electricity (again, not graphic and covered tactfully).
Ethnic diversity: Brown does a good job of including scientists from all over the globe.
LGBTQ+ content: None specified
Other: He talks about Edison and Tesla's feud a little.

[Brooke - TheBrookeList · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where did the ideas that led to electricity begin? This graphic nonfiction piece explores the scientific concepts and people who brought electricity into our lives. It moves quickly through time, with an interesting narrator, and captivating and well-explained lessons on what led to the electric and wireless methods we use today. Brown's analysis is interesting, fair, and hopeful. A quick read that distills a lot of info in a diverting way.

Read as a nomination in the nonfiction book award category as a panelist for Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (Cybils Awards).

We have enjoyed lots of books (mostly graphic works) by Don Brown, but found this a little less engaging than most of his titles.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Brown brings to light (see what I did there?) the origins of electricity. Seamlessly transitioning from one scientist/inventor to the next in sequential order, Brown breaks down the components of electricity; how each was discovered, the experimentation behind their discovery; and the breakthroughs that resulted. An interesting read on the progression of electricity and magnetism, and an ode to the ingenuity of the human spirit.

At just over 100 pages, this middle-grade graphic novel may appeal to younger readers. Engaging illustrations help to emphasize the concepts within. Conversational text throughout pulls the reader into the narrative. Well-researched and overall, a good read.

[Sarah Colbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

All Charged Up is the history of the development of electricity. Brown tells the story in an easy-to-understand, kid-friendly way with simple illustrations that don't detract from the story. Science-minded students will find this book interesting and engaging.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good example of a well done non-fiction graphic. This is an engaging way to teach kids a bit about the history of electricity as well as some of the scientific basics.

[Ellen]

Interesting and informative, but a tougher sell to students than I was hoping. I'm not even sure what the sticking point with this series is. The covers, maybe?

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great new book in “Big Ideas” series. Suggests things the reader should think about, and points out great conflicts in science and technology, some of which are still unresolved. THAT is life!

[Scott Hayden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun & Informative

I recommend this for young readers. If the rest of the series is like this book, I want to read more.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, Don Brown has added a great book on the history of electricity in this easy to read graphic novel.

[wildct2003 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick and dirty summary of electricity