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Timeless Thomas How Thomas Edison Changed Our Lives

Summary


What do record players, batteries and movie cameras have in common?  All these devices were created by the man known as The Wizard of Menlo Park: Thomas Edison.  Edison is most famous for inventing the incandescent lightbulb, but at his landmark laboratories in Menlo Park and West Orange, New Jersey, he also developed many other staples of modern technology.  Despite lots of failures, Edison persevered.  And good for that – because it would be very difficult to go through a day without using one of his life-changing inventions.  In this enlightening book, Gene Barretta enters the laboratories of one of America’s most important inventors.



News


I must be a Geek

September 26th, 2017

LibrarySparks Magazine

December 16th, 2013

Fizz Boom Read!

October 26th, 2013

2013 Cook Prize Honor Award

May 31st, 2013

Charlotte Award nomination!

April 15th, 2013

2013 Cook Prize Finalist!

February 21st, 2013

NEA 2013 Calendar

January 23rd, 2013

Kirkus gives Timeless Thomas a Starred Review!

May 16th, 2012

Pre-Order Timeless Thomas!

April 25th, 2012



Book Reviews


Booklist

July 23rd, 2012

Timeless Thomas: How Thomas Edison Changed Our Lives.

Following his purviews of Ben Franklin (Now & Ben, 2006) and Leonardo da Vinci (Neo Leo, 2009), Barretta applies the same picture-book format to the inventions of Thomas Edison. Left-hand pages show people using modern technology (“Today . . . we can record any sound we like and save it”), while, across the spreads, Barretta reveals the roots found in Edison’s work: “Edison’s tinfoil phonograph was the first device to record sound and play it back.” Barretta covers the expected Edisonian highlights—the telephone, the light bulb, and the battery—alongside other fascinating projects, such as a huge vending machine designed to dole out urban necessities, including coal and produce, or the first movie studio, built on a circular track to allow sunlight to shine through an exposed roof. Chipper cartoon illustrations show a perma-grinning Edison cranking out invention after invention, but Barretta also slyly draws in some of Edison’s employees, who are identified in short concluding biographies, emphasizing that Edison didn’t go it alone. An entertaining, enlightening intro.
— Ian Chipman




NY Times

July 18th, 2012

A Light Bulb Went On
‘Timeless Thomas,’ by Gene Barretta

 

 

By Pamela Paul
Published: July 18, 2012

 

 

If you’ve had about enough of your 8-year-old’s experiments — of wiping up food coloring, tossing broken toy parts haphazardly realigned, and mopping up the pungent vestiges of a vinegar and baking soda volcano — then crack open Gene Barretta’s new biography of Thomas Edison. “Thomas Alva Edison began experimenting when he was just a boy,” the author-illustrator begins brightly, adding, for those who might doubt the capacity of boys: “That’s right.” And nobody complained about the mess.

As Barretta makes clear in “Timeless Thomas,” Edison also made mistakes and suffered his share of failure. (Here the finger is gently pointed at children who give up too easily.) But this accessible and informative account, a worthy successor to Barretta’s other men-and-ideas books (“Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin,” “Neo Leo: The Ageless Ideas of Leonardo da Vinci”), is mostly about Edison’s many great successes and their enduring presence in everyone’s, including children’s, lives today.
“Timeless Thomas” is, in fact, almost entirely devoted to a series of opposing pages showing, on the one side, familiar modern technologies under the heading “Present Day” and, under ”Edison’s Lab” on the other, how Edison made what he did.
Thanks to these adroit renderings, what could seem creaky 100-plus-year-old “Eureka!”s become relevant to young readers accustomed to instantaneous technology upgrades available on their iPhones.
The “Edison’s Lab” pages also effectively explain, through simple diagrams, how some of Edison’s inventions actually worked. (This reader, at least, understood the basic concept of the phonograph for the first time, um, ever.) More obscure inventions are also introduced and explained. Did you know, for example, that Edison invented the electric pen, a forerunner to both the photocopier and the tattoo needle? (Maybe children don’t need to see this one.)
What the book lacks is some background information. It would be helpful to know how he came up with each invention. And the dates of each might appear along with the illustration instead of being confined to a couple of pages in the back. The narrative doesn’t actually tell us when Edison was born.
At the same time, Barretta’s approach minimizes the clutter, and his overall organization (by invention rather than life event), makes the book especially user-friendly for young readers, to whom the dates won’t mean much anyway. The lively illustrations, with spots of humor, help bring the more technical material down to child’s-eye level. An especially nice touch is an endnote on Edison’s employees, showing that even great minds benefit from collaboration, or from little helping hands.




School Library Journal

July 16th, 2012

Gr 4-7–Distinctive cartoon illustrations infused with contemporary warmth and 21st-century humor compare electronic products used by contemporary youth on one side of the page to inventions developed in Thomas Edison’s research labs and patented by him on the other. Boys recording music made with an electric guitar and keyboard are juxtaposed with Edison’s tinfoil phonograph. A boy listening to his sound mixer, a girl with a multi CD player, and a girl listening to her iPod are compared to dictation machines and the first talking doll. A boy making photocopies of his face is compared to Edison’s electric pen. Modern moviemaking is linked to Edison’s Kinetograph, the first movie camera, the Kinetoscope for viewing images, and the Kinetephone for projecting sounds with images. Edison’s discovery of radio waves, development of telegraph technology, and a useful light bulb with a community-wide power system are showcased. This will be a useful tool to introduce history and inventions to reluctant readers or students as the book stays tightly focused on Edison’s work rather than on his personal life. Those looking for more biographical information about the scientist can try David Adler’s A Picture Book of Thomas Alva Edison (Holiday House, 1996) or Melvin and Gilda Berger’s What Makes the Light Bright, Thomas Edison? (Scholastic, 2007).–Laura Scott, Farmington Community Library, MI




Publisher’s Weekly Review

May 21st, 2012

Timeless Thomas: How Thomas Edison Changed Our Lives
Gene Barretta. Holt/Ottaviano, $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8050-9108-3
Following his picture-book biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo da Vinci, Barretta introduces Thomas Edison to young readers. Edison (1847–1931), portrayed as a twinkly-eyed gentleman, busily develops his inventions in his New Jersey laboratories. In side-by-side scenes, present-day children and adults enjoy modern technologies (a tattoo gun, an MP3 player, a movie), while opposite, their antecedents (the electric pen, the phonograph, the Kinetoscope) are discussed. Barretta’s warm and funny watercolors create an inviting portrait of an influential man: “So every time you turn on a light, think of Thomas Edison and remember everything he gave us.” Endnotes profile Edison’s employees and offer trivia and additional resources. Ages 8–12. Agent: Lori Nowicki, Painted Words. (July)




★ Kirkus – Starred Review!

May 14th, 2012

A fine introduction to Thomas Edison’s exceptional inventions, innovations and career—and how his work continues to affect our lives today.
Young readers who know Edison only as the inventor of the incandescent light bulb will be fascinated by the breadth and scope of his genius as well as the sheer number of electrical devices he brought forth. They will be astonished that it is Edison whom they can thank for the phonograph, movie camera and projector, and improvements on the telegraph and telephone. There seems to have been little the man didn’t think of: an early vending machine, a vote recorder for the government (for which he received his first patent), and the first device to make use of X-ray technology. The modern photocopier and even the tattoo needle were based on an Edison creation, the electric pen. Barretta’s admiring, clear prose; detailed, child-appealing paintings; and easy-to-understand diagrams cast a focused spotlight on the “Wizard of Menlo Park” and his extraordinary work. In a nice touch, he pays homage to the gifted, dedicated team of scientists, chemists, engineers and inventors with whom Edison worked for years at both of his New Jersey laboratories; short biographical sketches of these important men are included, as is a list of “Thomas Trivia.”
A glowing tribute to the inventor who continues to influence modern life. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 7-11)





DVD Reviews


School Library Journal

August 23rd, 2013

Gr 2–6–Thomas Alva Edison and his inventive mind had a huge impact on society, perhaps more than most people realize. This is the focus of Gene Barretta’s book (Holt, 2012.) In the DVD, the author provides a live-action introduction, taking viewers to Edison’s workshop and showing many of his inventions. This provides a nice segue into the book itself, which is read by Steve Chiamadia while Barretta’s warm and humorous cartoon illustrations are scanned iconographically. The presentation is fascinating because it focuses less on Edison’s life than on his legacy. At Edison’s lab, students are introduced to an invention and then shown how it impacts us today. The connections that are made are enlightening as viewers learn how Edison was instrumental in the technology that led to modern-day movies, batteries, tattoos, vending machines, and much more. Barretta also emphasizes the work involved, and how Edison learned from his failures as well as his successes. This fascinating presentation provides unique insights and thought-provoking connections.–Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary, Federal Way, WA






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