Imaginative Inventions: The Who, What, Where, When, And Why Of Roller Skates, Potato Chips, Marbles, And Pie (and More!)

Imaginative Inventions: The Who, What, Where, When, and Why of Roller Skates, Potato Chips, Marbles, and Pie (and More!)

From Publishers WeeklyIn this edifying volume, Harper (When I Grow Up) explains how such everyday things as gum, skates and potato chips came to be, though she qualifies her research by noting that "creative storytelling and imagination were also used to tell these tales." For instance, piggy banks originated from vessels made of a clay called pygg; Harper speculates, "Some potter probably said,/ after giving it some thought,/ `What if I take my fine pygg clay/ and make a pig-shaped pot?' " High-heeled shoes, which first appeared in 16th-century France, inspire a tall tale about a short king. The vacuum-cleaner's innovator is depicted as a neat freak who tries to inhale dirt from his furniture: "1901 was the year/ that he built his first machine./ It took two men to operate/ but really got things clean." Harper maintains a lighthearted mood by describing each item in doggerel verse. She paints naive portraits of inventors at work, frames each spread with a thematic border and provides trivia about her humble subjects ("The most popular doughnut with kids is the chocolate frosted"). With its crazy-quilt visual patterns, bouncy stanzas and fun facts, this miscellany zigzags between informational and whimsical. Ages 4-8.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.Written in verse and filled with full-color illustrations drawn by the author, this book invites young readers inside the minds of great inventors, encouraging them to think imaginatively as it offers the origins of items such as roller skates, potato chips, eyeglasses, the vacuum cleaner, and more.From School Library JournalGr 1-4-Children who are interested in the origins of things will enjoy this whimsical look at how piggy banks, doughnuts, eyeglasses, high-heeled shoes, chewing gum, and more were created. Each of the 14 inventions is covered in a two-page spread. The main text is composed of four-line stanzas that note the date (or time period) of the invention and relate how the idea evolved. The verses are fun and anecdotal, such as the one about the violin-playing inventor of roller skates. "The night of the big party,/with wheeled skates upon his feet,/Joseph glided in while playing/and the crowd said, `Oh, how sweet.'" The busy pages each have a brightly colored background with thematic borders. On the right side of the spread, they list the inventor, place and date of the invention, and interesting facts and statistics about it. Fanciful cartoons are interspersed with the text. For a more conventional approach to the development of common things, Charlotte Foltz Jones's Accidents May Happen (Delacorte, 1996) is a good choice.Lynda Ritterman, Atco Elementary School, Waterford, NJCopyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.From BooklistGr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. With both imagination and invention, Harper investigates the origins of some of the most cherished of childhood artifacts: potato chips, chewing gum, marbles, roller skates, pie. She does it in rhyme and with a kind of puckish and offbeat visual imagery. Figures are stretched and squashed, have pointy extremities and oversized heads. Each double-page spread is bordered on three sides by little acrylic and collage quiltlike squares that echo the subject of the verse. The fourth border is a series of quick facts of the who-what-where-when variety. The verses are well researched, although Harper reminds readers in a note that "creative storytelling . . . was also used to tell these tales." Irresistible is the source of piggy banks: in the Middle Ages, there was a soft English clay called pygg, from which people made jars to keep their cash. Eventually some potter made one in the shape of a pig, and the rest is history. GraceAnne DeCandidoCopyright