Brilliant Ideas From Wonderful Women
by Aitziber Lopez
illustrated by Luciano Lozano
Date: 2019
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book non-fiction
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley
Discover the stories behind 15 of the twentieth century's key inventions in this fun and informative treasury of trailblazing women, who each made a unique contribution to the history of science and technology.
Car heaters…Monopoly…Disposable diapers…The dishwasher…Kevlar…Maritime flares… Anti-reflective glass…Wifi…Syringes…Submarine periscopes…Diagnostic tests…Lifeboats…Windshield wipers…Ebooks…What do each of these revolutionary inventions have in common? They were all pioneered by women!
Each brilliant idea is presented with biographical information about the brilliant woman who came up with it, including what inspired them. Learn how Martha Coston disguised herself as a man to contact pyrotechnicians and convince them to manufacture her idea for maritime flares, how a New York tram ride on a wet winter’s day led Mary Anderson to invent the windshield wiper, and why Letitia Mumford Geer’s one-hand operated syringe was a medical breakthrough, among other fascinating facts. Full-page illustrations show the inspiration for and use of these incredible inventions in humorous detail.
From lifeboat-inventor, Maria Beasley, to the grandmother of the ebook, Ángela Ruiz Robles, each of the inspiring women in this book achieved their goal of leaving the world a better place than they found it.
(synopsis from Goodreads)
I wanted to like this book. The basic premise is great. But this is so, so sloppy. I doubt anyone read the e-book before it was put up on NetGalley. It's full of cut-off sentences, terrible punctuation, and outright errors.
There are two instances that I noticed of dates that are 100 years off (the second one being pretty obvious, as someone who was born in 1947 couldn't possibly have had her invention on the Titanic when it sank). For non-fiction books for kids, I want the factual information to be spotless. The punctuation may just have been a translation issue, but it really should've been caught. (So should the random line of Spanish text in the section about Ángela Ruiz Robles's invention.) And there are at least three instances where the text is cut off in mid sentence, probably to preserve formatting and make the book look pretty.
The illustrations are okay, but there are some errors there, too. The page talking about the underwater telescope shows a periscope (they're not the same thing) and the Monopoly game has kids playing with coloured plastic pieces, rather than the tiny metal objects. There's no excuse for that; those pieces are one of the most recognizable things about Monopoly!
Maybe I should've clued in when I saw the publisher. Wide Eyed Editions also published Super Scientists, which I found abysmal from a technical point of view. I expect a lot better from children's non-fiction, and I can't bring myself to recommend any book with this many errors, no matter how great the premise is.
If this book is edited more closely and some of the illustrations are fixed to make it more accurate, it could be decent. I might also put the inventions in a more chronological order, because as it is, they just kind of skip around all over the place and there's no real reason for the arrangement that I can see. In its current form, though, I can't recommend this one at all. Check out Vashti Harrison's Little Dreamers: Visionary Women Around the World instead; it's also about brilliant women, but the execution is far better.
Thank you to NetGalley and Wide Eyed Editions for providing a digital ARC.
Premise: 3/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 1/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 2/5
Enjoyment: 0/5
Overall: 1.33 out of 5
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