Inventions (Insiders) Hardcover – Illustrated, March 10, 2009

My eight year old son enjoyed reading all the series including this one. It is part of his library collection, always excited to read (with some assistance) and share with his siblings.

My nine year old son likes this book so much, he even sleeps with it. He takes it to school so he can read it during down times. He has really increased his knowledge of inventions and how things work and expanded his vocabulary. His favorite invention is the ejector seat. The pictures are excellent and the text is appropriate for the grade level indicated on the description (grade 4+). I love how this book makes him want to read on his own and read more books. It's a great feeling to check on your kid at night and see that he has fallen asleep while reading. Warms my heart.

Inseider Books are just great... my 9 year old son has most of them. This one is full of excellant graphics and easy to read stories which keep is interests captured! The only issue was that we had to return the first book since there was a razor cut down the front of the book. Most likely when it was unboxed from the bulk packaging. Amazon sent us a replacement book in a few days! Great book and great services!

The graphic design of this book is incredible. The full two-page layout illustrations are gorgeous and draw the reader in. The text layout gives the reader pertinent information without droning on and on in text-book fashion. The time lines on each page are also graphic in nature and visually appealing.I'm not sure I can agree with some other reviews that this book is not useful. It doesn't go into great depth and detail, but it goes a long way to introduce kids to the topic of historical inventions and does give good, but brief descriptions on a wide variety of inventions. Anything that gets kids interested and delving for more specific information on any one specific topic is useful as far as I am concerned.My eight-year-old son found this book fascinating. He read it intently and then read it to his younger siblings who found the images very appealing. The first time my son read this book, he continuously issued oohs and ahs and occasionally exclaimed, "wow, I didn't know that". He was particularly interested in the water clock during the historical progression of clockworks. He said he liked how the material was introduced, giving information like year and inventor, without being boring.We have tons of historical books on any number of subjects, many very in depth, but none more enjoyed by my kids than this one. If you want a detailed text book, look for something else. If you want a book that is very appealing to kids about eight and older with descriptions that won't bore them to tears and turn them away, this is the book you want. It catches their attention and keeps them coming back for more.

We have several of the books in the INSiders series. They are beautifully illustrated, loaded with information and accurately depict in context settings of their subject mater. They effectively use 2-page spreads, both horizontally and vertically, to present an extended view of an context scene for each area being studied. The nice thing about this particular book is that it is current. Most books about inventions do not cover well modern inventions like computers, flat screen TVs, cell phones, security devices, etc., that are a growing part of our daily lives. The book is laid out to show, in one big scene, how multiple old and new inventions have changed over the years or are used together. For example, one sections depicts a news crew on the scene of an accident and shows multiple inventions all working together, like TV cameras, mobile satellite transmission units, cell phones, portable computers, rescue devices, etc. Perhaps lacking, due to so many individual inventions covered, is a deeper history or explanation of each invention, but that may be left to books dedicated to specific inventions, like a history of the automobile book. This book, with its beautiful and detailed illustrations, should be of great interest to any child and the whole InSiders series would make a great library for school projects.

Let me make two things clear to start with.1. I did not like this book.2. I am not the target audience.Now that we have that out of the way I can explain why I gave a book I don't care for such a high star rating.There were several things I did not like when reading the book myself.1. Index and Glossary are undersized to what I am used to.2. Flashy outsized computerized graphics.3. Flashy and colorful.4. Hard to read text in relation to images.So why the great rating? My son loves the book. My son is 7 and a pretty advanced reader for his age who loves gadgets and science.Here are some of the things he liked about the book according to him.1. No extra wordy parts without pictures (see point 1 above).2. Plenty of pictures (see point 2 above).3. Fun to look at and read (see point 3 above).4. The words are interesting and wrap around the images (see point 4 above).So you see it is a great topic for my son and written for him and not for me. My son is also pretty hard on books and this one has held up well under repeated readings and trips in the car to the park.