Who Was Thomas Alva Edison?

I was not familiar with this series but a child at a local school asked for a "who was" or "what was" book as part of a Christmas child in need project at a local elementary school. The fact that a child wanted one of these books, something to read and learn from, impressed me, as did the content and engaging illustrations when I read them myself. Of course, Amazon had them and I bought a bunch for this youngster whom I wish I could hug and thank for likely growing up to make the world a smarter and better place.

This book tells the true story of an intelligent, curious man who was constantly looking for new inventions. As a child he was not a scholarly student and the teacher's "put down" of Al, as he was called, made his mother furious and she confronted the teacher, and withdrew him from school and home-schooled him herself. Actually, his hearing had been affected by a case of small pox earlier. The difficult books his mother gave him to read were science, history and nature books which spurred Al to start making experiments in the basement lab he set up in the family home. Al created a newspaper called The Grand Trunk Herald,, sold subscriptions, all this was done on the three-hour journey by train from Port Huron to Detroit. When he grew to be a teenager he asked to be called Tom or Thomas. He knew Morse Code and then learned to be a telegraph operator. He invented the phonograph to play music, the electric light, the telephone, and his patents reached an incredible 1,093--more than anyone else to this day. When he invented the electric light he changed the world.

It was easy to read and has a lot of details. I bought for my child, but was very impressed and read the book myself. I learned a lot about Mr. Edison that I did not know.

These "Who was" books are fantastic. Not only are the great for younger readers (my granddaughter is 7) but, they are full of information about the subject (in this case Edison) and she is learning about history at the same time. . She has already read several of these "Who was" books. She is improving her reading skills, enjoys learning about the person in the book and it opens the door to discuss other things (ie other inventors of the time, what life was like before Edison etc). I would highly recommend any of the "Who was" books

Good read when I was still young and learning, and good for those still young and growing!

This biography packs a lot of fascinating detail about Edison's work into an accessible format. As always with the books in this series, there is a great bibliography at the end, and I guarantee you'll want to read more when you finish the book.

Came in great condition. These "Who Was" series are the only books I have been able to convince my daughter to read and she loves them. I really enjoy when she tells me about all the little facts and details she has learned about the person. Our library is where she found them but she has read all they own, and I thought it would be special if she owned her own copy as well.

Great book to spark an interest in history and geography for children. My son teaches history and geography and these are the type of books I purchased when my children were little. I always wondered where my son got his love of history and realized these type of books were what I read quite often growing up. They always held my interest and I knew my children would love reading if they had similar books. Molly Pitcher and Thomas Edison were my subjects in grade school when I won D.A.R. awards!