ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

The downcast eyes and grave expressions of the monumental figures in Fisher’s paintings set a tone that occasionally contradicts the text’s exuberance, e.g., Bell’s “joyous capacity for learning all there was to know about the universe grew as large as his waistline”—but this recap of the inventor’s character and accomplishments is engrossing reading and a grand tribute to an extraordinary imagination. Fisher provides detailed accounts of the inventions and incisive views of their significance; his pictures may lack the visual flash of those in Tom L. Matthews’s Always Inventing (see review, below), but they provide clear, straightforward detail. The lack of a bibliography is the only disappointment; Fisher finds plenty to admire in Bell, as will readers. (diagrams, chronology) (Picture book/biography. 7-10)