ALA Booklist

It's hard to believe that a life and work as complicated as Einstein's could be distilled to a Ready-to-Read chapter book, but Lakin does a fine job of highlighting the important moments, with equal focus on Einstein's early life and later successes. His three major discoveries--photons, e = mc2, and the general theory of relativity--are each given a crisp, one-page treatment that will work well for the target age group as well as older readers. The attractive watercolors seem to have been copied from familiar photographs. Although many are portraits, they move the text along. Some things, especially Einstein's relationship to the atom bomb, are lightly covered, but this is a well-rounded entry in the Stories of Famous Americans series, bolstered by a glossary, a bibliography, a time line, and several Web sites.

Horn Book

This easy-to-read biography provides a reasonably good overview of its subject's life and accomplishments, however the brief text is peppered with too many exclamation points. The static illustrations help to break up the text, which is presented in six chapters. Timeline, websites. Bib., glos.

Kirkus Reviews

As she did for Giants of Science Leonardo, Newton, Freud and Curie before him, Krull delivers a splendidly humane biography of that gold standard of brilliance, Albert Einstein. The narrative ably contextualizes his youth against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving technological society and within a secular Jewish family that valued education, showing that his single-minded pursuit of raw thought developed naturally. Drawing extensively on Einstein's writings, she presents a fully rounded portrait of a man whose genius combined with a bad temper and arrogance, to the detriment of his own professional advancement, not to mention his relationships with women and his children. Using concrete examples, the author brings such mind-bending notions as his General Theory of Relativity within the grasp of child readers. In following his career, she also makes readers aware of the intimate connections between politics—both academic and international—and science. Her vocabulary is, as always, both playful and collegial: "His ideas made your head spin, in a down-the-rabbit-hole, Alice in Wonderland sort of way." Another standout in a uniformly stellar series; here's hoping Einstein isn't the last Giant. (Biography. 10-14)

School Library Journal (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Gr 7 Up-Two profiles of Nobel Prize-winning physicists. Einstein, probably the best-known scientist of the 20th century, was responsible for redefining our understanding of space, time, and gravity. Fermi, an Italian physicist, played an integral role in the development of nuclear energy. Each volume focuses on the professional life of the scientist and meticulously details the progression of their research and how it has influenced the world. Both books include a list of related activities, Internet sites, and a particularly useful glossary (especially in Fermi as it defines complicated terminology). The emphasis of both biographies is on scientific details that may overwhelm some readers. Occasional black-and-white photos, reproductions, charts, or maps break up the texts. These books are great for assignments, but many students will find them a bit tedious for pleasure reading.-Laura Reed, Kitchener Public Library, Ontario, Canada Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.