Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France Hardcover – Picture Book, March 10, 2015

The kind of nonfiction being published for children these days seems to get better and better. This is a wonderfully fun book as well as being a perfect book for teaching the scientific method. History and science all in one book, Mesmerized presents the interesting story of Ben Franklin helping the king and queen of France to expose a fraud who was convincing many people to pay money to use 'a force' to 'help' people with illnesses or even just the curious experience this 'force'. Ben Franklin used the scientific method to show that there was no such force, just the power of people's mind and the power of expectation. Today we call this the placebo effect, something the author explains at the end of the book.I especially enjoyed the creative illustrations that beautifully complemented the text. It was fun to see some of the comparisons the author and illustrator made like Ben Franklin as an apple pie and Dr. Mesmer as a layered torte which the illustrator took from the text and illustrated. This book has a multitude of teaching possibilities, everything from history, science, and the power of words and pictures together. A definite winner of a book and I loved it.

Excellent book! We LOVE the amazing illustrations and the story. Used for fun reading and as a teaching tool in the classroom!

If you've got elementary-aged children, I can't recommend this book enough. It's a history, critical thinking, and science lesson all rolled into one. The illustrations are beautifully detailed and it gives details about the actual historical event. Most importantly, it teaches how powerful belief is (placebo effect) but that belief is not the same as fact. When I read this with my 8 year old son, he said "What a great book!" so it's informative AND enjoyable. Wish all kids could read this!

This book is AMAZING! Great story and the illustrations are beyond impressive. I can’t wait to read this to my third graders!Aside from the actual book - this came packaged better than any book I’ve ordered from Amazon! It was wrapped, then mounted to a cardboard piece so it wouldn’t bend. I got the hardcover but it was nice that they added the extra shipping precaution.

My class read Ben and Me as a read aloud, and I needed another book to finish out the week before we started our next read aloud. I searched for books about Ben Franklin, and this one caught my eye. When I read the synopsis, I started researching about it, because I was just amazed! Yet, another amazing thing in which Ben Franklin was involved. My students loved the book and at first were guessing what was happening, making their own hypothesis. It was spontaneous learning! They also loved the illustrations and learning one more incredible thing about Ben Franklin!

Great book for teaching about Ben Franklin. This book explains how blind tests became widely used, which is something not mentioned in any curriculum resources for Ben Franklin. I did a blind taste test with my first graders after we read this book to see if they could tell the difference between store brand and name brand Cheez its.

We all loved this book. Perfect for ages 1-100.

My elementary aged grandsons enjoyed reading this book. As a retired teacher, the play on words, the explanation of the scientific method, and the summary of Ben Franklin's life in France makes this a book for all ages. Even teaches French. Not just a picture book.

good well-illustrated book

雷が電気であることを確認するために凧をあげたフランクリンはアメリカ建国の父の一人でもある。ちょうど明治維新の志士たちが国内外を駆け巡ったように、フランクリンもフランスの援助を取り付ける密命を帯びてフランス革命前のパリへとやってくる。アメリカ人は自分たちの建国を独立戦争とは言わない。アメリカ革命という。フランス革命より前に王様のいない国を作った、最初の民主主義革命だというわけである。それを英国に敵対すると言う理由で援助したのルイ16世とマリーアントワネットだったというのがまた歴史のおもしろさなのだが、この時期にパリに行ったフランクリンは科学を巡る騒動に巻き込まれる。敵方はメスメル、動物磁気と言う概念を考え出し、催眠術の始祖となった人物である。この絵本にもちゃんと解説されているが、催眠、暗示、プラセボ、などで人の病気が治せることを発見したのはメスメルの大きな功績であると言って良い。一方、現在に至るまでメスメル流の治療術メスメリズムは数々の代替療法を生み出してきた。科学とは何だろうと子どもに（大人にも）伝える上ですばらしい絵本が登場した。子どもっぽいところは全くないので、是非英語中高生に英語で読んで欲しい。

Pros: good read and a nice age-appropriate introduction to scientific method and critical thinking.Cons: the author attributes all of what's going on to the placebo effect -- and the evidence is very strong that hypnotic suggestions occur through different cognitive processes to placebo suggestions.Placebo suggestions are highly reliant (probably dependent) on context specificity and pre-frontal cortex activity;Highly hypnotisable hypnotic subjects appear to exhibit reduced PFC activity and show activity in different brain regions and networks, and hypnotisability as a trait appears not to depend so much on context.And that, as it happens, isn't so hard to explain in a book like this:Ben Franklin did a good job considering the science of the day but science always moves on and it got a bit more complicated.