Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Pop-Up House of Inventions: Hundreds of Fabulous Facts About Your Home
Nonfiction novelty book
For ages 6 to 9
Candlewick, 2009 ISBN: 978-0763642532
We are going to explore five rooms in a typical western home. These rooms are full of inventions, some of which have had a long and illustrious history. Other inventions came onto the scene more recently.
Let us begin in the kitchen. Goodness! This room is full of inventions of all kinds. Here is a fork on the table. Did you know that the first fork was brought to England by Saint Thomas Becket? Well it was. The first household refrigerator was made in Maryland in 1803, and people have been baking bread for 10,000 years.
After the Industrial Revolution, middle class families started to have "living" rooms in their homes. Let us take a look in the living room in this house. There is a man sitting on the sofa reading a newspaper. The first paper was made in China in around A.D. 105, and the process was kept a closely guarded secret for five hundred years. The man on the sofa is wearing a pair of glasses. The first corrective glasses for farsightedness were invented in Italy in 1290. People who were nearsighted had to wait until the 1400s before they could wear glasses too.
Packed with delightful pop-ups and numerous flaps to lift, this wonderfully entertaining and informative title is sure to keep young – and no so young – readers busy for minutes at a time. Readers can find out about items that are commonly found in the kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, and garage. At the back of the book there is a timeline showing "some inventions that changed the way we live."
