So You Want to Be An Inventor?
The creators of the Caldecott MedalistSo You Want to Be President?mirror that successful format in this enthusiastic, fact-filled picture-book  tribute to predominately American and European inventors. Kids may be inspired  to make history themselves when they learn that Benjamin Franklin was concocting  new inventions by age 12. Solid advice such as "If you want to be an inventor,  find a need and fill it" or "If you want to be an inventor, be a dreamer"  precedes sections on people who did just that. Famous innovations such as Eli  Whitney's cotton gin share equal billing with ideas that never really took off,  like Andrew Jackson Jr.'s adjustable eyeglasses for chickens or Franz Vester's  coffin with escape hatch (in case the person inside was still alive.) The brief  anecdotes about each inventor and invention don't offer much historical context,  but readers will devour fascinating facts on the origins of Velcro (cockleburs  on a Swiss engineer's pants) and the story of where the expression "the real  McCoy" came from (the train lubricators of Elijah McCoy). Two female  inventors--one who was fed up with dishpan hands and invented the first  dishwasher, and actress Hedy Lamarr, who helped invent a system for guiding  torpedoes by radio signals in World War II--accompany the otherwise male-heavy  cast of characters. One-sentence biographical notes in the back list the  inventors in alphabetical order and a bibliography concludes the book. David  Small's lively, color-washed illustrations steal the show, zeroing in on comical  moments in history and creative gleams of discovery to great effect. (Ages 7 and  older)--Karin Snelson--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.