Nana's Book Library

• Age: 10+
• Particulars (Out of 5):  
  • Historical value:  *****  
  • Positive role models *****   
  • Inappropriate language:  None.
  • Sexual references:  None.   

Reminder:  Nana’s Books are rated G.  Anyone could read them, or listen to them being read aloud.

            This book was named a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, and a Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies.  Jean Fritz wrote a lot of books on American history for children, and won many awards for them.  Deservedly so – because she had an amazing ability to make history come alive.  Even her footnotes are interesting!

            Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706 in Boston, the10th and “youngest son of a youngest son of a youngest son of a youngest son of a youngest son – right back to his great-great grandfather.  This made him special,” thought his father, who was a Leather Apron man.  He had a trade.  Carpenters, shoemakers, silversmiths, blacksmiths – these men were called Leather Aprons, because they wore leather aprons when they worked.  Ben was also smart, and gets sent to school for three years.  At age 12, at the urging of his father, he becomes an apprentice to his brother James, a printer.  It’s a nine-year commitment to work for free in exchange for learning a trade.  He doesn’t want to do this.  “Benjamin could not bear to think of all those years going to waste.  So he decided to use every spare moment to learn all he could about everything he could.  He would read.  He would write.  He would observe.  He would try out new ideas.”

            And does he ever!  Already a good swimmer, he reads a book on swimming tricks and becomes an expert.  “He learned to swim on his belly while holding both hands still, to carry his left leg in his right hand, to show both his feet out of the water, to swim with his legs tied together, to sit in the water, to cut his toenails in the water, to show 4 parts of his body (head, one hand and two feet, according to the illustration) out of the water at the same time, to swim holding up one leg, to put on his boots in the water,” and to leap into the water like a goat.  He makes wooden paddles for his hands and feet, to try to swim faster.  He makes his own sail (a kite) to pull him across the mile-wide pond.  

            He reads a book on how to argue, which serves him well.  He loves math and as a hobby, constructs “magic squares,” harder versions of Sudoku, except each row of eight numbers must add up to 260.  At age 17, he runs away, hops on a boat and lands in Philadelphia, where he gets a job as a printer – this time getting paid for it – and becomes so good that he does the printing for the government of Pennsylvania.  He forms a group with other young men who like to read and argue and try out new ideas; he calls it the Leather Apron Club.  He gets married, owns his own newspaper, and keeps learning – about comets; how hurricanes move, and how ants communicate, among many other things.

What a guy!  Benjamin starts the first library in America, helps organize Philadelphia’s fire department, and comes up with better ways to “light the streets, deepen the rivers, dispose of garbage, and keep people from slipping on ice in the winter.”  He invents things, like a stepstool, a rocker with a built-in fan, and an iron wood-burning stove that works better than a fireplace.  He starts Poor Richard’s Almanack, which becomes a bestseller.  He makes a huge discovery (his big idea) about electricity, using a kite and a key in a lightning storm. He becomes famous.  He invents the lightning rod.  “For his own lightning rod, he also fixed up a contraption that would ring a bell in the house whenever lightning hit.”  (His wife hates that bell, by the way.)

And we haven’t even gotten to the crucial role he plays in the independence of America and the birth of our country!    

             This book is available new and used on Amazon.  Multiple used copies are available on eBay and Abebooks.

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc