Poetry Review: Biographical

Eureka! Poems About Inventors

by Joyce Sidman
Illustrated by K. Bennett Chavez







Bibliographic Citation: Sidman, Joyce. Eureka! Poems About Inventors. Illustrated by K. Bennett Chavez. Minneapolis:Millbrook Press. 2002.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7613-1665-7

Review: The poetry for this book is used to describe important people and inventions that we could not live without.  Leonardo da Vinci and his many ideas, Francois-Louis Cailler, who created the first chocolate bar (which I belive many of are glad he did), George de Mestral, the creator of Velcro, and last but not least, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, which helps us all be here today. Each poem in this book is a description of the person and how their invention idea came to mind. The book is divided into time periods with a brief narrative about each inventor mentioned. The clever wording to describe their thoughts and their product make this a great book to share.

Do Ya Know 'Em?

Do ya know 'em? Can you guess

what they invented? Can you? Yes?

If you can, you'll get a jolt a'

James Watt and Alessandro Volta
or tap along with Samuel Morse
and Wilhelm Gieger (Count, of course).

And while you're at it, do not fail

to give a cheer for Louis Braile
and his countryman --le bon docteur--
the great esteemed Louis Pasteur....

Introduction to Share: This shared poem gives you the opportunity to look up more information on each person mentioned and/or their invention. What a great research tool to get you started.  Here is another place to start looking: Enchanted Learning. 

Another idea: After reading the book Frindle by Andrew Clements, students could write their own poem about the main character, Nicholas, and how his new name/invention for a pen became so popular.