Pistes d'exploration

Make a timeline of Nikola Tesla’s inventions.

Write five interview questions (with answers) for Nikola Tesla.

Write the obituary that might have appeared in the newspaper after Tesla’s death.

Rate Nikola Tesla’s inventions from most important to least important.

Discuss your favourite part of the story. Why was it your favourite? What is the main message of the story?

Imagine and write about how your life would be different without electricity.

Who were Edison and Tesla? Using teacher-recommended resources, create a T-chart and list important information about these two inventors. Share your findings.

If you had a chance to interview Tesla, what would you want to know? List some questions you would ask him.

Select an important section from the book. Create a two-page cartoon strip depicting the significant events described in that section.

Work and More Work, In the Bag!: Margaret Knight Wraps It Up

Mots-clés

Biography , electricity , inventions , inventors , narrative non-fiction , Niagara Falls , Nikola Tesla

Commentaire descriptif

This biography of the man who developed AC electricity starts with his childhood, describing young Nikola’s enormously curious and active mind. As a boy, “Nikola began to notice invisible energy everywhere. Even the flight of insects thrummed with power.” Using the language of storytelling, the narrative covers key inspirational moments in the young man’s development. It describes the moment two great rivals of electricity meet. Nikola hands his letter of introduction to Thomas Edison, which reads, “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.” Despite money troubles, sabotage and other challenges, Nikola is able to realize his ideas. Painted illustrations convey both human expression and the physical world with empathetic skill. In the first spread a fierce electrical storm is portrayed with painterly force, while painstaking details depict the dwarfed Tesla family home. The final spread shows the natural showman Nikola Tesla, grandly introducing a fully lit backdrop of New York City’s Times Square: countless bulbs illuminate theatre marquees, floodlights beam into the sky, trolley cars glow and car headlights pierce the night—all thanks to Nikola’s inventions.