Author & Illustrator: Bonnie Christensen
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Year: 2012
Location: Knox County Public Library- Lawson McGhee
Awards: Publisher's Weekly starred review, Parents Choice Award, Smithsonian's Best
Summary: Written in a very straightforward first person, this is the story of Galileo Galilei told from the perspective of him as an old man looking back on his life. It talks of the influence Galileo's father had on him and his habit of refusing to follow popular tradition. After building a telescope, he observed the moon and made his famous claim that the Earth was not the center of the solar system. He wrote a book about his findings and was tried and sentences to imprisonment within the walls of his house for heresy. The text is accompanied by beautiful paintings and reproductions of Galileo's actual drawings.
Classroom Ideas:classroom study of the solar system, biography, telescope
It would be really interesting to compare this rendition of Galileo's life with Starry Messenger, Peter Sis's third-person accounting.
Extras: endnotes have a map of Italy, foreward & afterward that describe the historical actions, extensive chronology, listing of Galileo's experiments, inventions, improvements, & discoveries; glossary, bibliography, and list of websites
