When Sparks Fly: The True Story of Robert Goddard, the Father of US Rocketry

by Kristen Fulton, Diego Funck (Illustrator)

Overview

Blast off with this bright, energetic nonfiction picture book from Kristen Fulton and Diego Funck all about Robert Goddard, the inventor of US rocket science!

Robert Goddard may be known as the father of US rocketry, but back in the 1880s, he was just a kid in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Even as a youngster, his eyes glimmered with scientific interest and the thrill of discovery. With BAMS! POPS! BANGS! he experimented time and time again with one mission: make his rockets fly!

Join Kristen Fulton and Diego Funck as they take you on one explosive journey about a young kid who shot for the moon, never gave up, and let his creative sparks of curiosity burn bright.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481460996
Publisher:	Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication date:	07/03/2018
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	70 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Nonfiction picture book author Kristen Fulton calls central Florida home. But, she spends the majority of the year traveling across America. She visits every museum and history center that she can find along her journey. Wafting through dusty artifacts, Kristen is always on the lookout for her next story. Want to learn more about Kristen or when she will be in your area for author events? Visit KristenFulton.com.

Diego Funck is an artist living in Brussels, Belgium, where he works as an illustrator and graphic designer for children's books and international publications. He has showed his works in galleries in Argentina, Belgium, and England. Visit him online at Behance.net/DiegoFunck.

Editorial Reviews

"An engaging and accessible contribution to the STEM-related biography canon."

Booklist

"An engaging and accessible contribution to the STEM-related biography canon."

Booklist

06/01/2018
Gr 2–4—Robert Goddard is a fairly unsung hero of science. Though he is widely acknowledged to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry, and though he filed 214 patented inventions related to rocketry, he found little support for his work during his lifetime, and he is not well known outside scientific circles. This modest picture book begins to correct that. A biography, the book chronicles Goddard's development from infancy through an awakening of interest in rockets, past many failures, and on to success. The narrative's strength is its focus on Goddard's insatiable curiosity, his determination, and the way in which his failures fed his eventual success in developing rockets. Funck's illustrations underscore the importance of Goddard's work, invoking a legendary feel. While the writing is clunky at times, and the author missed some opportunities (Goddard found inspiration while trimming the limbs of a cherry tree; he gained insights from watching birds), this simple account offers a reliable, child-friendly introduction to rocket science. VERDICT An inspiring true story punctuated with explosions that should be popular in most school libraries.—Sheri Reda, Wilmette Public Library, IL

School Library Journal

2018-03-27
Punctuated—unsurprisingly—by explosions, an account of the groundbreaking rocketeer's childhood and first experiments.Fueled by an early interest in hands-on science nurtured by his parents and sparked by reading The War of the Worlds, Goddard's ambition to "build something that would soar to space" led to years of experimentation and failure analysis. Finally, in 1926, a brief but successful flight pointed the way to "every shuttle that has blasted into space, every astronaut who has defied gravity, and every man who has walked on the moon." Fulton occasionally skimps on scientific details (in one childhood trial Robert "emptied a small vial of hydrogen into a pan"; even in the backmatter, there's no explanation why, as he notes in his journal, "Hydrogen and oxygen when combined near a flame will ignite"). Still, she highlights the profound curiosity and determined, methodical effort that ultimately earned her subject a well-deserved place in the pantheon of scientists and inventors. Scientific gear in Funck's cartoon illustrations often looks generic, and in one scene he depicts a rocket that is markedly different from the one described in the adjacent narrative. Moreover, his explosions look like fried eggs, and most come with oddly undersized if all-capped onomatopoeia ("BOOM!"; "POP!") that underplays both the melodramatic potential and the real danger to which Goddard must have exposed himself. Goddard and his family are white.Disappointingly lackadaisical. (afterword, list of sources) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)

Kirkus Reviews