The fourth grade is starting a biography unit. I culled through the biographies I have to share in the classroom biography museums we are going to set up in each class. I have enough kid & adult biographies to put a few in each museum. But I got excited because I came a cross a couple of biographies I picked up at the OASL Conference I attended in October. One of them was about this man, Nikola Tesla.
He was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system. And local author, Elizabeth Rusch wrote a biography of him this year.
There are many reasons why I like Elizabeth Rusch’s books. They are readable, but not dumbed down. She assumes that the people reading her books are smart and want to learn. She also thinks about teachers and creates materials to support teaching.These are often in the back of her books and/or included on her website. She has a FOR TEACHERS page on her website where she has materials to support the common core using her books. She always provides lots of backmatter in her books: bibliographies, other info she didn’t have room for in the text, scientific explanations. Her books never disappoint.
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