If you think a book about Albert Einstein for kids will be dry, think again.
The new picture book On a Beam of Light: The Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne is an absolutely delightful introduction to a super cool guy. In a way, the narrative feels like any children’s storybook, with simple prose, a few manageable lines per page, and gorgeous illustrations by Vladimir Radunsky. But what will captivate kids right away is that it starts at the beginning–when Albert is a little kid who refused to talk until he was about three. His parents worried how different he was, “but he was their baby, so they loved him…no matter what.”
A kindergartener with a decent attention span will love you reading it to him, but I’d imagine inquisitive kids in third and fourth grades will also be sucked into the story of the different kid who wondered what it would be like to ride beams of sunlight and then realized how much he loved studying science and gravity and numbers and atoms.
I also love that at the author’s notes at the end of the book about everything from practical jokes to pacifism and the atomic bomb. there’s also a mini bibliography of “the most interesting and important” books she used to research this one, should your kid be ready for more.
Whether or not On a Beam of Light inspires a fascination with Einstein or an interest in science (which it very well might), I think even the youngest readers will remember the opening of the story. And how being different, being curious, and asking questions are always very, very good things. –Liz
Find On a Beam of Light by Jennifer Berne at our affiliate, Amazon, or your local independent bookseller.
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