Genius! I Am Albert Einstein by Brad Meltzer

"SOME SAY THAT I TOOK LONGER TO SPEAK BECAUSE I DIDN'T THINK IN WORDS. I THOUGHT IN PICTURES."

Albert's parents had great hopes for him, and when he was slow in learning to talk, they worried. He seemed bright in other ways, but the sounds he made were, er, very unusual.

"I WOULD PRACTICE EACH SENTENCE IN MY HEAD SILENTLY, MOVING MY LIPS AND WHISPERING TO MYSELF, UNTIL I HAD EVERY WORD RIGHT."

Young Albert was fascinated by his father's compass. Why did the needle always point the same way no matter how you moved it? It was fascinating!

And the young Albert spent hours building amazingly designed playing card structures, and his wooden blocks were arranged in amazingly complex buildings. Later, when he took violin lessons, he seemed enthralled with the structure of the music. He was definitely . . . different!

"SOME PEOPLE SAY I WAS A GENIUS, BUT MY TEACHERS THOUGHT I WAS A DAY DREAMER."

"ONE SAID, "ALBERT, YOU'LL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING!"

But of course Albert Einstein was a genius, so famous for his groundbreaking work with mathematics and physics that his face, even in cartoon style, is almost synonymous with scientific genius these days, as in Brad Metzler's I am Albert Einstein (Ordinary People Change the World) (Dial Books).

Illustrated humorously in Christopher Eliopoulos' caricatures of the famous scientist, this small book offers young readers the basic biographical information of the premier scientist of his time and an introduction to the life's work of the best known achievers of their time. As in the other books in this primary grade series, the main character is also shown in photographs of himself as an adult, as in the presentation of Einstein's Nobel Prize. There are more informative biographies, of course, but this one is a good first introduction of the iconic physicist who grew up to change the world. For those "different drummer" kids, Booklist, adds, "Readers will be interested to learn that despite being a supersmart genius, Albert didn’t always get good grades."