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9780736822176

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"Aliens from Mars have landed in the state of New Jersey."" By opening with this line from The War of the Worlds read by Orson Welles during a radio program on October 20, 1938, the author underscores the impact the medium had on our culture. Young students, unfamiliar with this story, will be surprised and perhaps drawn in while reading of the resulting panic as people called officials and swarmed from their homes. Subsequent chapters explore how the news and messages were once sent in Morse code and later over the telephone while ships at sea had to resort to lights or flags to contact other ships until the advent of the ""wireless"" which was what the radio was first called. Credit for the invention is given not only to Guglielmo Marconi, but also to James Clerk Maxwell, Heinrich Hertz and Nikola Tesla. A simple explanation of how a radio works is included, as are illustrations and diagrams. Information about further study and directions on how to ""Create Radio Waves"" add to the excellence of this book. A complex subject is explained in such a way as to be comprehensible to young readers. The book is part of the ""Fact Finders Great Inventions"" series.-- ""Children's Literature Comprehensive Database"" In five separate titles, this series presents excellent introductions to the airplane, the automobile, the light bulb, the radio, and the telephone. Each volume consists of six chapters that cover the need for each invention, the scientists who contributed to the development of the invention, how the invention works, and recent events relating to the invention. The books also provide a time line showing how inventions have changed in the past 100 years or so, ""Fast Facts,"" a ""Hands On"" section, a glossary, access to a Web site, a bibliography, and an index. All of the chapters are well written and illustrated. My only quibble is with the author of the volume on airplanes, who chose to focus on the Wright brothers' lightweight engine as a key to their successful flyer, instead of the Wrights' insight that the ability to control the flyer was critically important. The time line and the ""Fast Facts"" are interesting and useful. In all but the book on the automobile, the ""Hands On"" section discusses an experiment that demonstrates a principle underlying each invention. The experiments I tried all worked as described. The Internet sites gave more in-depth information than is in the book. However, the site on the radio is no longer available. I recommend these books for children at about the third-grade level, for classroom libraries, and for reference collections for elementary schools.-- ""Science Books and Film"" These brief introductions begin by explaining what items were used before the featured invention was developed, such as telegrams (Telephone) and the abacus (Computer). Each title traces the process of discovery for its device, explains how it works, and discusses its impact on humanity. The books' pleasing layout will entice youngsters and help them gain information as they read the simple texts. Mostly black-and-white photographs and drawings show the individuals responsible for creating the inventions and their first use in society, while color photos highlight the more current usage. Each offering ends with a page of ""Fast Facts"" and an interesting activity (making a telephone with cups and string, using binary code to write a message, and making radio waves with a battery and coin). Joanne Mattern's Telephones (Enslow, 2002) and Josepha Sherman's The History of the Personal Computer (Watts, 2003) provide more in-depth coverage.-- ""School Library Journal"""

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