On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne; is a fascinating read for kids and parents alike.  This story captures what it is to think, use your imagination and be filled with curiosity and wonder about the mysteries of the world that surrounds us.  The book starts out describing the unconditional love of Albert’s parents.  How they supported him and offered him a compass to discover all the mysteries of the world.

This story depicts a curious young Einstein so curious that he has endless questions that just need to be answered and solved.  Vladimir Radunsky has created amazing illustrations that capture all we know and love about Einstein.  One of my favorite parts of the story is when Einstein plays music and that music allows him to unlock secrets and mysteries – helping him to focus and think.   Another fabulous illustration is when Einstein discovered that atoms are what the world is made of, Radunsky pixilates his illustrations for this page to make this connection all the more clear.

This book is geared toward 1st grade and up.  I could really see this being useful for petites who are quiet and doing a lot of thinking.  As well as students who have a lot of questions.  This is a story that talks about a genius who was once a little boy who asked a lot of questions who grew into a man who still asked a lot of questions.

I think that this could be a great book to use with 4th and 5th graders who are writing biographies or researching our great thinkers.  A fun follow-up activity could be to write Einstein a letter.  Another way would be to have this book out along with other artifacts about Einstein, a compass, newspaper clippings, photographs, etc.

Another self to text connection could be to have students think about a place that they like to think and write about it giving as much detail as to why they like to think there, or if it is not a real place where they imagine the best place to think would be.  I would use this page as a platform for this text to self connection writing/journal topic.

This book is fabulous from cover to cover.  The illustrations are fantastic and really bring to life what the inside of Einstein’s mind might have been like.   This books would be a great addition to any library and if you can get your hands on it and share it with your petites they will be all the better for having this wonderful story read to them.

Happy Reading,

Erin