Lines, Bars, and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs by Helaine Becker

Abstract

Reviewed by: Lines, Bars, and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs by Helaine Becker Elizabeth Bush Becker, Helaine Lines, Bars, and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs; illus. by Marie-Ève Tremblay. Kids Can, 2017 36p ISBN 978-1-77138-570-1 $17.95 Ad 6-9 yrs Young William Playfair might not have realized it at the time, but moving into his older brother's care when their father died was one of the best things that could have happened to him. John Playfair, an eighteenth-century Scottish scientist and mathematician, instilled academic discipline and a taste for mathematics in Will, and although the fourteen-year-old struck out on his own to make his fortune, he would return to mathematical interests to actually make his mark in the world. Prone to dreaming and scheming, Will bounced between jobs and dabbled in writing; finally, in preparing books on economics and statistics, he introduced the first line graph, bar graph, and pie chart (piquantly named "the Camembert" in France, after the wheel of cheese), but his scandalous past prevented most scientists from taking his work seriously. Becker's text emphasizes Playfair's dilettante lifestyle, only hinting at outright dishonesty in his background and saving the details for the endnotes. That's the most interesting part of the book, but it's mostly buried under bland utility that won't do much to entice kids to the human or the mathematical subject. Tremblay's cartoon illustrations, with a humorously anachronistic 1960s flair that recalls Hanna-Barbera styling, underscore Becker's lighthearted spin on Playfair's biography. Since this title will undoubtedly see its heaviest use within the math curriculum, three pages of notes pitched at adults on Playfair's life and development of his "charts" will guide educators who want to expand the story. Listeners who encounter only the main text may suspect they're missing some of the juicier facts, but they'll be smugly pleased to learn that the graphs they master in primary school flummoxed adults a couple of centuries ago. Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois