Always Inventing: A Biography of Alexander Graham Bell

On its Year 5 curriculum booklist, Ambleside Online (AO) schedules a biography of Alexander Graham Bell for term two and suggests two titles. We selected Always Inventing: A Photobiography of Alexander Graham Bell, by Tom L. Matthews. This has been an excellent choice.

• The engaging text is well written, easy to read, and easy to understand, a very important element when discussing scientific matters.
• Photos, illustrations, and explanatory captions grace each two-page spread. More than simple (or simplistic)additions to break up the text, we've found these to be absorbing on their own. We especially appreciate artwork of Bell's various inventions, which are too difficult to envision based on written description alone.
• Some Bell quotations, from letters and the like, are also used as design elements on several pages.

Although an older child could easily read this book on his or her own, we've enjoyed reading it together. We pause often to remark on a photo or discuss more fully a diagram. Sometimes we merely marvel over Bell's intellectual curiosity and fortitude, which never lessened his kindly nature and moral uprightness.

I highly recommend this book as part of your science or biography studies.

"The study of Nature is undoubtedly one of the most interesting of all pursuits. God has strewn our paths with wonders, and we certainly should not go through Life with our eyes shut."