Thomas Edison (A YWAM REVIEW)

We had the opportunity to try another great book from YWAM Publishing. We had a list of many to choose from, so it was a tough decision, but we chose Heroes of History-Thomas Edison this time. This title is from the Heroes of History series which is a series of 28 biographies that includes other great names like Abraham Lincoln which we reviewed last year, and loved it.

We received a physical soft backed copy of the book. It's about the size of a typical novel or chapter book, and is easy to hold and carry around. I chose to read this aloud to my boys who are 11, 8, and 6. The 6-year-old is a little on the young side, but he joins us for the reading time playing quietly, and listens in a little bit. The two older boys really enjoyed listening to this book, and that was my main focus.

To go along with our book we had a great study guides to help us dig deeper into the life of Thomas Edison. There are study guides to go along with all the Heroes of History books, and they come as a downloadable guide. This was such a great resource. We mainly used it for the chapter questions, which are well thought out questions that get my boys thinking, but these study guides are also full of great activities and ideas for writing and projects. There are sections for key quotes, a display corner, chapter questions, student explorations, community links, social studies, and other related themes to explore. There are also reproducibles which include a fact sheet, a map, and a timeline page. I would have loved to have had more time to get to some of those other great projects, but we couldn't right now. I hope to come back to read it again, and explore more.

A synopsis of the book:

The book Heroes of History-Thomas Edison starts out with him as a young boy. It talks about how he started questioning everything even at the young age of 4, and everyone called him Al, short for his middle name Alva, but that changed back to Tom later in his life.

He didn't actually start going to school until after the age of 8 because he got very sick, and was weak for a long time after. But, for the short time he was in school he struggled. He had other ideas, and couldn't do what was asked of him. He was sure his teacher (the reverend) thought he was stupid. He came home crying one day after hearing the reverend tell the inspector that Edison was "addled." His Mother would have none of that, and marched right back to the school with him to demand an apology. The reverend said he would not apologize, so Thomas Edison's mother says: "Then, Mr. Engle, you will not see my son again in this class. I shall teach him myself." With that, Al's mother swung her son around and the two of them marched out the door." The next day his mother immediately started homeschooling him, and ordering some great books for him to read. He soon learned to read, and was reading anything he could get his hands on.

His first job was being candy butch working on the railroad, that led to all his new crazy ideas and jobs along the railroads, including telegraph operator, and inventor. His ideas were not always accepted, and he jumped from job to job quite frequently, but he never gave up. My boys enjoyed hearing about all his different jobs.

The Heroes of History books come in sets of 5, all 28, or singles. There are other series like the Christian Heroes: Then and Now, that have many books in the series as well. They can be purchased the same way. I could see reading these along with the study guides being a great history curriculum.

If you would like to learn about the other books YWAM has to offer you can read the other crew reviews by clicking on the banner below.