Surprising stories of amazing discoveries.

This book tells stories about how certain discoveries were made in the world. From how Charles Goodyear helped discover a "better" rubber to how Pluto was discovered, this book talks about how it all happened. Some sections seemed to drag on and could have been shortened, but Dennis Fradin is very descriptive in his writing. He does back up this book with a very detailed bibliography in the back of the book. Overall, this book is worth checking out if you are into how things were discovered. ( )

As expected from the title, when hard work meets serendipity incredible discoveries are often the result. I found this book very informative and fascinating; however, I would expect that this book may come across as boring and monotonous for younger readers. There are some illustrations throughout the book but they are all black and white - even the more recent photographs. The text is pretty heavy and some of the vocabulary may be too advanced for young readers. Although this may not be a book children read from cover to cover I think that this book has excellent supplementary value for teachers and parents. I would recommend this book for middle and high school students. ( )

Lauren Fields
This book was interesting. Because of its format it was dense while at the same time facile. Read in vignettes, it was very engaging. However reading strait through felt monotonous. The stories of brilliant people who changed the world were interesting and the writing was sufficient, but the episodic nature of the structure and continuous lack of depth was off putting. I would recommend this book, perhaps as it was intended, as a resource to look up a person or some piece of information. The writing is much better and more authentic than a textbook or an encyclopedia entry (do they still have encyclopedias?) I would use thins in a class for individual passages or to let children read what they wanted out of the book. I usually do not recommend students only reading part of a book, but I believe this to be an exception. ( )