What Color Is My World?: How African-American Inventors Have Changed the Way We Live (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: What Color Is My World?: How African-American Inventors Have Changed the Way We Live Elizabeth Bush Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem . What Color Is My World?: How African-American Inventors Have Changed the Way We Live; written by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld; illus. by Ben Boos and A. G. Ford. Candlewick, 2012. 44p. ISBN 978-0-7636-4564-9 $17.99 Ad Gr. 3-6. Ella and Herbie are moving into a house that has some need of repair. While Mama shops for supplies, the siblings are left to invest some sweat equity in their new digs under the supervision of the handyman, Mr. Mital, who has encyclopedic knowledge of African-American inventors and innovators. While Ella and Herbie good-naturedly kibitz and squabble, Mr. Mital tells them about the men (and one woman) whose contributions improve our everyday lives. Changing the lightbulbs puts him in mind of Henry Sampson and his gamma electric cell, Granville Woods and the induction telegraph, and Lewis Latimer's improvement to the lightbulb filament. Lunchtime brings on stories about Joseph Lee's bread machine, Lloyd Hall's efforts in food preservation, and George Crum's potato chips. The framing story is contrived, and it is certainly unnecessary to straightforward information delivery, but the book's layout makes it relatively easy to bypass for those who want [End Page 292] to cut to the chase. Lift-up flaps reveal tidy little career bios (ostensibly Ella's notes) for each inventor, and longer double spreads examine the work of James West (microphones), Frederick Jones (refrigeration), Percy Julian (cortisone), and Garrett Morgan (firefighters' safety hood) in more detail. Boos and Ford's illustrations for the framing story veer to the garish, while portraits of the inventors themselves, and several line-and-watercolor spreads of sequential art, are more restrained and successful. A list of books, websites, and videos is also included. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois