Alexander Graham Bell Answers the Call

by Mary Ann Fraser, Mary Ann Fraser (Illustrator)

Overview

Well before Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, Aleck (as his family called him) was a curious boy, interested in how and why he was able to hear the world all around him. His father was a speech therapist who invented the Visible Alphabet and his mother was hearing impaired, which only made Aleck even more fascinated by sound vibration and modes of communication.

Naturally inquisitive and inclined to test his knowledge, young Aleck was the perfect person to grow up in the Age of Invention. As a kid he toyed with sound vibrations and began a life of inventing.

This in-depth look at the life and inspiration of the brilliant man who invented the tele-phone is sure to fire up the imaginations of young readers who question why and how things work.

Driven by curiosity and an eagerness to help others, Aleck became a teacher for the deaf. His eventual invention of the telephone proved that he never stopped thinking big or experimenting with sound.

Backmatter includes more information about Bell’s inventions, a timeline of his life, a bibliography, and sources for further learning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607348825
Publisher:	Charlesbridge
Publication date:	08/15/2017
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	31 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Mary Ann Fraser is the author and illustrator of over sixty fiction and non-fiction books for children, including No Yeti Yet (Peter Pauper Press), Heebie-Jeebie-Jeebie Jamboree (Boyds Mills Press), the Ogg & Bob books (Two Lions) Ten Mile Day(Henry Holt), and several titles for The Let’s Read-and-Find-Out series, including Where Are the Night Animals (HarperCollins). She lives in Sunnyvale, California.

Read an Excerpt

From the beginning, the world all around spoke to Alexander Graham Bell. And he listened.

His family called him Aleck. To his eager ears, the hustle and bustle of 1840s Edinburgh, Scotland, was a symphony of every pitch and tone.

He even wandered into a field once to see if he could hear the wheat grow. Each new sound whispered to Aleck's curiosity. How was he able to hear? What made one noise different from another? Why could he hear some sounds but not others?

While Aleck trained his ears to the sounds of speech, his mother heard very little of it. Eliza Bell had lost most of her hearing as a child. Still, she was a gifted portrait painter and pianist, filling their home with art and song. To hear notes, she lay an ear tube across the piano's soundboard.

Aleck had to speak into the same ear tube for his mother to understand him. The awkward device acted as a hearing aide, but a poor one at best. How he wished he could find a better way for his mother to clearly hear his voice, the piano, the world around them.

Along with his brothers, Melly and Ted, Aleck learned to play the piano before he could read. Sometimes the music rang in his mind for days. He'd lay awake at night puzzling over how instruments produced notes. How were he and his brothers able to hear the notes when his mother needed the aid of an ear tube?

His father explained that sounds are vibrations. Unlike his mother's, Aleck's ears were able to collect the vibrations and send the information to his brain. Of course, Aleck had to test this notion out for himself. Could other parts of his body sense sound vibration, too?

Editorial Reviews

From an early age "Aleck" (Bell's family nickname) evinced an interest in sound and hearing, probably due to his father's profession of speech therapy and his mother's hearing loss.Aleck's childhood experiences, observations, and experiments led to his careers, first as a teacher to the deaf and then as an inventor of the telephone. Aleck was determined to speed up communication and improve on the telegraph, first developed in the 1830s. The book's accessible text focuses on his life up to and including the invention of the telephone in 1876, when he was 29. His later inventions are described in the backmatter, along with a chronologyand an author's note. The multimedia illustrations use photographic collage elements, friendly, slightly cartoony human figures, and sound effects and dialogue balloons on some pages. Photographic insets and diagrams further explain Bell's work. This expands the content of the book and makes it appealing to both children looking for the story of Bell's life and his lifelong curiosity and those more interested in scientific explanations. However, it lacks a bibliography. The front and rear endpapers are of particular note, depicting a photographic history of the telephone from 1876 to 1989 in sepia tone. The author's note describes Aleck's interest in photography and her own desire to incorporate photography in different ways in the book's design. Calling out to history buffs and scientists, this will inspire young inventors.
—Kirkus Reviews


A look at the inspiration behind Alexander Graham Bell’s most noteworthy invention, the telephone. The book reveals much about Bell’s personal life and the driving force behind his inquisitive nature. Bell’s mother, Eliza, had lost most of her hearing as a child, and his father, Melville, was a speech therapist; young Bell is shown here contemplating how sound works and learning the two-handed manual alphabet to communicate with his mother. Many important events, including the collaboration between Bell and Thomas Watson, are conveyed in the form of a story, which makes the facts easy to digest for younger readers. Fraser’s multimedia artwork recalls Bell’s passion for photography, with some scenes resembling a snapshot. Text boxes are peppered throughout, giving readers more detailed explanations about how the ear works, the age of invention, and more. An author’s note and further information about Bell’s inventions are appended. VERDICT Recommended for biography collections serving elementary school students.
—School Lilbrary Journal

From the Publisher

07/01/2017
K-Gr 2—A look at the inspiration behind Alexander Graham Bell's most noteworthy invention, the telephone. The book reveals much about Bell's personal life and the driving force behind his inquisitive nature. Bell's mother, Eliza, had lost most of her hearing as a child, and his father, Melville, was a speech therapist; young Bell is shown here contemplating how sound works and learning the two-handed manual alphabet to communicate with his mother. Many important events, including the collaboration between Bell and Thomas Watson, are conveyed in the form of a story, which makes the facts easy to digest for younger readers. Fraser's multimedia artwork recalls Bell's passion for photography, with some scenes resembling a snapshot. Text boxes are peppered throughout, giving readers more detailed explanations about how the ear works, the age of invention, and more. An author's note and further information about Bell's inventions are appended. VERDICT Recommended for biography collections serving elementary school students.—Kristen Todd-Wurm, Middle Country Public Library, NY

School Library Journal

2017-05-31
From an early age "Aleck" (Bell's family nickname) evinced an interest in sound and hearing, probably due to his father's profession of speech therapy and his mother's hearing loss.Aleck's childhood experiences, observations, and experiments led to his careers, first as a teacher to the deaf and then as an inventor of the telephone. Aleck was determined to speed up communication and improve on the telegraph, first developed in the 1830s. The book's accessible text focuses on his life up to and including the invention of the telephone in 1876, when he was 29. His later inventions are described in the backmatter, along with a chronology and an author's note. The multimedia illustrations use photographic collage elements, friendly, slightly cartoony human figures, and sound effects and dialogue balloons on some pages. Photographic insets and diagrams further explain Bell's work. This expands the content of the book and makes it appealing to both children looking for the story of Bell's life and his lifelong curiosity and those more interested in scientific explanations. However, it lacks a bibliography. The front and rear endpapers are of particular note, depicting a photographic history of the telephone from 1876 to 1989 in sepia tone. The author's note describes Aleck's interest in photography and her own desire to incorporate photography in different ways in the book's design. Calling out to history buffs and scientists, this will inspire young inventors. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews