Full Text Review(s)
[Robots, Navigational Aids]-"This new series offers nineteen titles on a variety of important inventions that have transformed society and life. Robots begins with a discursive look at robots in literature and popular culture. Greek myths tell how Hephaestus (Vulcan) created metal companions, and Daedalus made statues so realistic that they came to life. Ancient Chinese and Indian stories also told of lifelike mechanical creatures—clearly a deep-seated human fascination or fear. Later inventors and filmmakers began constructing simple and not so simple mechanical creatures. The history of these early robots or androids, the men who made them, and the amazement they evoked is fascinating. By the 1900s American ingenuity was applied to creating robotic weapons and industrial workers, and these applications are more important than ever. Intrinsic to the search is artificial intelligence. Nowadays robots can perform work, both domestic and industrial, "play," amuse, and assist in surgery. Robotics is a growing and respected scientific field. Ethical questions are argued and provocative questions are raised. Students who have, or want to have the iPup or iDog, as well as Transformers and a host of other robots, will find much to interest them.

Navigational Aids is also a well-written, very interesting look at tools used to get from one place to another, dating 5000 years ago right up to the present. Ancient sailors who first ventured out of land sight faced daunting problems, involving water depth, distance from land, and direction. Early brave Egyptian, Phoenician, Arab, Chinese and Polynesian mariners studied the stars, winds, and currents, and invented simple tools to track them. In the 1200s the quadrant was invented, and the astrolabe improved to show the position of the sun and stars seen from a particular location at a particular time. From the eighteenth century onward, many clever new inventions made navigation easier: the compasses, gyroscopes, Fresnel lens and improved lighthouse visibility, accurate watches, and navigational buoys. Stories of early explorations and their navigational challenges are fascinating and are selectively included. Anyone familiar with GPS may finally understand how it works after reading the author’s explanation. Interested students will find a wealth of carefully research and well presented information in this very readable book."

"An experienced series nonfiction author, Otfinoski here contributes to the Great Inventions series with a book about a topic of immediate interest to most young people, not least because some of the milestones occurred within contemporary students’ lifetimes. After moving quickly through early computing history, he slows down to describe how computers transformed from university and governmental number-crunchers into tools for global information exchange. Sidebars highlight significant people and anecdotes, such as the source of the term debugging, which was derived when an errant moth clogged an early mainframe. Some readers may wish that visual aids had been included for the finer points of engineering. (What is so magical about silicon, anyway?) But the book’s illustrations, primarily of innovators and their hardware, are effective at dramatizing the rapid pace of technological change, and will leave kids imagining what breakthroughs will render their own gadgets as obsolete as the room-filling ENIAC of 1946. Although this lacks specific source notes, it does include a time line, a glossary, and dual bibliography—one aimed at kids, one at teachers."

"Many similar children's books have been published; this new one is by far the best of its type. Stefoff uses a historical approach, but it doesn't begin abruptly in 16th century Holland; she traces the beginnings of lenses from classical times, and explains the historical and optical relationships between telescopes and microscopes clearly.  The excitement that microscopes generated in17th century London when Hooke and Leeuwenhoek reported on their discoveries is described well, Zeiss, Abbe, Zernike, Knoll, Ruska and others are mentioned as the development of modern microscopes is traced, and the importance of microscopes in the study of disease by scientists such as Pasteur and Koch is woven into the story.  The basic optical principles of glass lenses get a clear two-page description, and there's a good diagram that relates the electron lenses of transmission and scanning electron microscopes to their light microscope counterparts; that's a weak point in most similar books.

The vocabulary of this book is adult and it will be useful in high school.  The text is engaging, and even professional microscopists will learn from it."

"Well-known non-fiction writers for young adults Milton Meltzer and James Lincoln Collier look at the history of certain inventions in this series. The books are well written and have lush color illustrations. The writing is on a somewhat simple level so more advanced readers may find them too easy. However, for a student wanting to do a report and needing more than a general encyclopedia can offer, these titles will work well. These books can be used in an interdisciplinary unit because they cover the science of the inventions, as well as what was going on in societies that led up to the need for the invention. The book on gunpowder and weaponry has a somewhat anti-war theme and the cotton gin book explores the evils of slavery. The bias evident in the Collier titles makes the series uneven, but the Meltzer titles (The Cotton Gin, The Printing Press) are stellar. This series would be good for educators wishing to build their historical science or social studies collection. Recommended."

[ Vaccines ]-"Along with information about advancements in disease control, Collier also discusses major outbreaks that may not have led to a vaccine, but definitely impacted the way people lived, or died. The diseases described include smallpox, the Black Death, rabies, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, ebola, and AIDS. The book is broader in scope than the title implies, and students looking into medical science research, tracing the history of disease, or specifically studying vaccines will find material they need here. The writing is clear, and color and black-and-white illustrations appear throughout. Among the recent books on diseases, this one stands out."

[ The Cotton Gin, The Printing Press ]-"These titles focus on two inventions that changed the course of history. Meltzer briefly explores the lives of the men most closely associated with them, Eli Whitney and Johann Gutenberg, respectively, and delves into the historical context that led to the development of the machines. In Cotton Gin, the influence of mechanized cotton processing on the growth of slavery in the United States and the increase in textile mills is documented. The author makes the case that the greater volume of cotton production required more people to harvest it and work in the mills built to handle the increase. In the second title, Meltzer emphasizes the more positive outcomes of the printing press. Science, religion, democracy, and exploration all benefited enormously from the widespread dissemination of information and knowledge that followed the advent of movable type. In both books, the author expertly describes a setting that is ripe for invention. Powerful photographs (Cotton Gin), historical artwork, and personal narratives make the times real and relevant to readers. The bibliographies and the further reading in Cotton Gin are helpful additions; however, several suggested Web sites were not functioning at the time of this review and quotes are not fully documented. Students will find the books accessible, and the primary-source material makes them strong choices for reports and general classroom use."