Ben Franklin for Beginners
If you would not be forgotten as soon as you're dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. - Benjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin narrated and lived the Great American Success Story. As America's prototypical polymath, he excelled--and even defined--a number of professions including printer, writer, postmaster, scientists, inventor, public citizen, politician, and diplomat.
He was a cornerstone in the foundation of the United States. He discovered practicable uses for electricity. He was America's first great satirist. He founded the University of Pennsylvania. He invented bifocals. He was a legendary ladies' man. He was all of these things...and was so much more.
Ben Franklin For Beginners, written and illustrated by Tim E. Ogline, opens the book on Benjamin Franklin and tells the story of his life and times with wry wit and whimsical drawings.
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Become an affiliateAs the song says, most American youngsters 'don't know much about history.' Indeed there is an epidemic of historical illiteracy out there in our public schools fully as troubling as the more publicized deficiencies in math and science. Tim Ogline's beguiling book on Ben Franklin represents a kind of verbal vaccine that will address this national illness, giving us a Franklin that kids will find accessible and, as they would say, 'awesome, ' while mature scholars will attest is the genuine article. --Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Founding Brothers-- "Reviews"
Ogline's approach to a young adult-biography hybrid is nothing short of totally brilliant. Ogline explores nearly every facet of Ben Franklin from 'Humorist and Hoaxster' to 'Founder and Framer' all of which read as seamlessly as a fiction narrative. Each page of Ben Franklin For Beginners is adorned with a delightful cast of caricatures, sketches and cartoons of our founding geek. Each illustration succeeds at keeping the reader highly engaged without losing sight of what's important: learning something. --Collen T. Reese, Geekadelphia-- "Reviews"
In this highly readable offering, Ogline emphasizes that Franklin was an ingenious generalist. Organized in chapters that highlight Franklin's career as a printer, writer, humorist, inventor, statesman, and founder of a nation, the wide and varied world of Franklin is open to see. Ogline's illustrations enhance the text with caricaturelike depictions of Franklin flying the kite for the electricity experiment, playing the glass armonica, and perpetrating the hoax on Titan Leeds. Another graphic novel-like sequence shows Franklin's famous bout with gout. Each chapter begins with a sketch of a public sculpture of Franklin that gives the reader a perfect image of Franklin as a wildly inventive person who was interested in just about everything. --Martha Edmundson, American Library Association Booklist-- "Reviews"
Ben Franklin for Beginners is the perfect introduction for both young and old to one of America's Founding Fathers. Tim Ogline successfully captured the spirit and life story of Benjamin Franklin through his text and contemporary illustrations. --The History Girl, TheHistoryGirl.com-- "Reviews"