Odd Boy Out - by Don Brown (Paperback)

About the Book

When he was born in 1879, Albert was a peculiarly fat baby with an unusually big and misshaped head. When he was older, he hit his sister, frustrated his teachers, and had few friends. But Albert's strange childhood also included his brilliant capacity for puzzles and problem solving: the mystery of a compass's swirling needle, the intricacies of Mozart's music, the secrets of geometry--set his mind spinning with ideas. In fact, Albert Einstein's ideas were destined to change the way we know and understand the world and our place in the universe.
In spare, precise text filled with graceful detail and accompanied by sometimes humorous, sometimes lonely portraits, Don Brown introduces us to the less than magnificent beginnings of an odd boy out. The result is a tender rendering of the adventures of growing up for one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century.

Book Synopsis

When he was born in 1879, Albert was a peculiarly fat baby with an unusually big and misshaped head. When he was older, he hit his sister, frustrated his teachers, and had few friends. But Albert's strange childhood also included his brilliant capacity for puzzles and problem solving: the mystery of a compass's swirling needle, the intricacies of Mozart's music, the secrets of geometry--set his mind spinning with ideas. In fact, Albert Einstein's ideas were destined to change the way we know and understand the world and our place in the universe.
In spare, precise text filled with graceful detail and accompanied by sometimes humorous, sometimes lonely portraits, Don Brown introduces us to the less than magnificent beginnings of an odd boy out. The result is a tender rendering of the adventures of growing up for one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century.

Review Quotes

Brown maintains a delicate tension between his accessible presentation and his extraordinary subject.

Horn Book, Starred

Humanely and humorously depicted... Kids won't need to understand relativity to appreciate Einstein's passage from lonely oddball to breathtaking genius.

Kirkus Reviews, Starred

Readers...will be heartened by the parallels between their own experiences and those of an iconic science guy.

Booklist, ALA

Brown at his best as he zeroes in on those telling traits that trim a larger-than-life figure down to size.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Through eloquent narrative and illustration, Brown offers a thoughtful introduction to an enigmatic man.

School Library Journal

Brown's narrative and appealingly quirky...art effectively illuminate the eccentricities and intelligence of Einstein the boy and the man.

Publishers Weekly

Library Media Connection

About the Author

Don Brown is the award-winning author and illustrator of many picture book biographies. He has been widely praised for his resonant storytelling and his delicate watercolor paintings that evoke the excitement, humor, pain, and joy of lives lived with passion. School Library Journal has called him "a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies." He lives in New York with his family.