Author: Jennifer Berne
Illustrator: Vladimir Radunsky
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Copyright: 2013
Genre: Nonfiction- Biography
Number of Pages: 58
"One A Beam of Light" is a great book on the life of Albert Einstein put into terms that children can understand. From a child who did not speak to our history's genius that he became, Jennifer Berne does a great job of outlining major things that Einstein accomplished in a fun way for children to get into. But what does the phrase "On a beam of light" have to do with him? Read it and find out!
When I say what I am about to say, I am not knocking this book, but rather trying to explain what exactly the illustrations are like. The illustrations for "On A Beam of Light" are childlike. What I mean by this is that most of the pictures presented in this book are simple with not as much detail and not as carefully drawn as most children's books are. But the simplicity suits the book. I loved the very last illustration, which simply consisted of a bunch of question marks, but it was promoting the readers to think and imagine and come up with questions to answer. I also loved the page where it talked about how everything was made of atoms, and portrayed this by drawing everything on the page out of tiny dots to represent the atoms.
Grade: 3rd
Content Area: Mathematics
Standard: Generate measurement data by measuring lengths using rulers marked with
halves and
fourths of an inch. Show the data by making a line plot where
the horizontal scale is
marked off in appropriate units — whole
numbers, halves, or quarters. [3-MD4]
Using this book in the classroom would be a great way to tie in some history or make a fun way to include math. Since the book talks about a beam of light and the speed of light, the teacher could then talk about the speed of light. The class could talk about how far away the sun is and work out math problems concerning the speed of light and how long it might take them to get to the sun if they could travel that fast, or maybe not quite that fast. After working out problems the students could make a line plot of the measurement between earth and the sun, and making up the units to portray the distance.
There are many cool facts about Albert Einstein in this book. Besides educational facts, there are some crazy personal facts too. One of these is the fact that Albert Einstein claimed to think better without socks on. He did not like socks and wasn't going to let anyone tell him that he had to wear them. Einstein did not speak anything until around the second year of his life, which scared his parents because this was not normal. But in the end, Einstein became a genius and helped us to discover the concepts of atoms, how the speed of light is so much faster than anything else, and may other things about the universe.
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