These are two of my favorite pictures from my research on
children’s books about Einstein and Curie. (You can click on
them to see the bigger images). They are I think, the most
visual example of my thesis’s argument and I think they are also
illustrative of exactly what we need to pay attention to in
Children’s biography. Stories about famous figures’ biographies
are the most directly applicable aspect of children’s
literature. This is the part of the story that with which
children can most readily identify. Tragically, this part of the
story of these lives is generally the thinest part of the
historical record. Because children’s literature is so rarely
reviewed by historians, this is not an issue for many children’s
authors. They can simply invent the figures childhood. The first
picture is a picture of the young Albert Einstein terrorizing
his baby sitter. Albert is described as cruel, and angry, he
throws tantrums the text tells young readers that “His temper so
terrifies a tutor hired to help young Albe