ALA Booklist (Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

Adapted for young readers from an adult book and PBS series, this volume explains six innovations that have changed the world: glass, cold, sound, clean (water), time, and light. It explores how these building blocks have inspired technological breakthroughs that have transformed our lives. The discovery of glassmaking, for example, led to the creation of clear glass, eyeglasses, microscopes, telescopes, cameras, fiberglass, laser beams, and fiber optic cables. Readers may be surprised that some technologies common today were actually developed more than 100 years ago, even if they weren't refined until more recently (electric cars were first developed in the 1890s). Although it mostly features contributions by men from North America and Europe, Ada Lovelace and Marie Curie are mentioned. Not only does this praise scientists' successful undertakings but it also recounts their erroneous beliefs and failures. Vintage photographs, recommended resources, and further back matter are included. The intriguing information here (Louis XIII didn't bathe at all until he was seven!) will inform and fascinate report writers and casual browsers.

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

This entertaining middle-grade adaptation of the PBS miniseries and adult book of the same title looks at how innovations around glass, refrigeration, sound, sanitation, time-keeping, and light enabled contemporary lifestyles. This conceptual organization of history, combined with the book's thesis of broader nexuses of invention, may shift young readers' worldview. Reading list, websites. Bib., ind.

Kirkus Reviews

Beginning with ideas that emerged thousands of years ago, Johnson tracks a series of innovations that led world culture to where it is now.In an adaption for younger readers of his adult work of the same name (2014), he tracks six pathways arranged along the following themes (which also serve as chapter titles): glass, cold, sound, clean, time, and light. The chapter on glass begins with the discovery of natural glass in the Libyan desert about 10,000 years ago and tracks it through use as jewelry, the creation of windowpanes, the development of glass that was clear, the creation of eyeglasses (necessary as books became more common), the development of other types of lenses and the scientific advances they inspired, and finally to fiber-optic cables in the digital age and creation of a massive telescope in Hawaii. Each engaging chapter remains fully grounded in the fundamental concept that advances inspire further developments, serving to present history in a nutshell that is still shown as a grand sweep of progress. A single minor gripe is that in the chapter on time, a detail on early photography is off by a few years. Excellent backmatter rounds out a balanced and thoroughly engaging presentation.Altogether, a fine exploration of technologies emerging over the eons and their remarkable interconnectedness. (Nonfiction. 11-14)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this fascinating book, Johnson (Where Good Ideas Come From) presents a -history of ideas and innovation,- focusing on six important technical and scientific innovations that have shaped the modern world but that we often take for granted. The book reveals what Johnson calls -the hummingbird effect,- when -an innovation... in one field ends up triggering changes that seem to belong to a different domain altogether.- We learn how Gutenberg-s press created a market for spectacles, which, in turn, led to the development of the microscope, the telescope, and the camera; how muckrakers were empowered by flash photography in the Progressive Era; and how the modern advertising business has roots in the germ theory of disease. Understanding the hummingbird effect is crucial in our world of constant technological development. Johnson debunks the genius theory of innovation-the romantic idea of the lone inventor who changes history-arguing instead that ideas and innovations emerge from -collaborative networks- at the intersections of different domains. He says that this understanding is crucial to -see more clearly the way new ideas come into being, and how to cultivate them as a society.- 75 b&w and color photos. Agent: Lydia Wills, Lydia Wills LLC. (Oct.)