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Ben Franklin's Big Splash: The Mostly True Story Of His First Invention (2014)

by Barb Rosenstock(Favorite Author)

3.99 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1620914468 (ISBN13: 9781620914465)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Calkins Creek

review 1: This is one of those books that defy traditional nonfiction, so I'm calling it creative/literary nonfiction. It's the "mostly true story" of Ben Franklin's attempt at inventing swimming apparatus. The swim fins and sandals never quite worked, but instead of calling them failures, he just wasn't satisfied, so he kept trying. Thus, he became a scientist and inventor. This is a great message to convey to kids - seek, study, struggle, success! I thought it was interesting that swimming wasn't popular colonial times. I also loved the word play with alliteration - lots of vivid verbs starting with "s."
review 2: Ben Franklin grew up the son of a soap maker and loved to spend his free time on summer days swimming in the river near his home. In the time of his c... morehildhood, people just did not swim or wash regularly because they thought it would make you sick, so Ben was considered rather odd for the amount of time he spent in the water. As he swam, Ben started to wonder why it was that fish swim so much better than he could. And so Ben starts to come up with inventions that would help him swim like a fish. First, he made swim fins for his hands out of wood and they did make him much faster, but they also made his wrists sore and tired. The next invention was swim sandals, but they didn’t improve things much since they slid off his feet. But Ben was not a quitter and so he took each defeat as a way to improve his idea. After all, he was a scientist through and through.Rosenstock sets just the right playful and rather silly tone with this biographical picture book. She includes plenty of details about the society in the 1700s and how it was different from our modern one. Using different fonts and repeating words, she also emphasizes the importance of trial and error in science and solving problems. She also ties in the fact that this is how science works and how scientists learn things, along with a healthy dose of dedication and resolve.The illustrations by Schindler are marvelous, cleverly covering up the more private parts of the naked swimming boy with splashes and waves. They have a light-hearted quality to them and also a visual lightness that makes the book even funnier as they swim across the page.A book to inspire children to try to solve problems they discover, this is a fresh and summery look at a boy genius at play. Appropriate for ages 5-8. less

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