Book Summary: Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein is a picture book biography of Albert, starting with his unusual size at birth, his moody and angry disposition as a child, and a lot on his schooling, including how he ignored his work and areas that he didn’t care about, with a very brief discussion of his work in the patent office, marriage, children, and a bit about his discoveries.
Impressions: I am somewhat dissatisfied with this book’s focus on his schooling and having so little on his scientific career and adult life. I do think the schooling is important for a book targeted as school age children, but leaving off almost entirely his marriage, children, and the things he studied does the reader a disservice.
Professional Review: From Publishers Weekly (2017)
Brown (Mack Made Movies) shapes an impressionistic portrait of Einstein in his early years, opening with comments of family members gazing upon the newborn (his grandmother says he is "much too fat" and "his mother fears his head is too big"). Writing in the present tense, the author shares anecdotes that reveal young Einstein's character: his temper tantrums scare away his tutor; he brings "a single-minded attention" to such pastimes as building elaborate houses of cards; his parents so encourage his independence that they allow him to wander the streets of Munich alone at the age of four; and the boy early on displays an extraordinary skill at and fascination with mathematics (though other schoolwork bores him). True to the book's title, Brown emphasizes ways in which Einstein fails to fit in with his peers. He dislikes sports, is disturbed rather than excited at the sight of soldiers parading in the street and, as the only Jewish student in school, is taunted by his classmates. The writing occasionally becomes muddy when discussing Einstein's scientific thinking and discoveries ("He says that everything is in motion and when something moves very fast, as fast as light, strange things happen, like clocks running slower and objects becoming shorter"), targeting the book more to kids who identify with the hero's personality traits than to those interested in the man's ideas. But Brown's narrative and appealingly quirky pen-and-ink and watercolor art effectively illuminate the eccentricities and intelligence of Einstein the boy and the man. Ages 4-8.
Library Uses: This book could be useful for any number of STEM programs, inspiration for the kids who might think they aren’t good enough for science fields, or a storytime about famous people.
Readalikes: Gene Barretta has a series of picture book biographies of other famous scientists, such as Neo Leo on da Vinci, and Now and Ben about Benjamin Franklin. Karl, Get Out of the Garden, about Carl Linnaeus would be another interesting kid appropriate biography, about the father of the modern classification system for plants and animals.
References
Brown, D. (2004). Odd Boy Out Young Albert Einstein. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Publishers Weekly. (2017). Odd Boy Out. [Review of the book Odd Boy Out]. PWxyz, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-618-49298-5
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