Who Was Ben Franklin?

This book tells the story of one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers, from his early life in Boston to his many roles as an inventor, writer, and political leader. Set in colonial America, the book explains how Franklin’s curiosity and intelligence helped shape the nation. This book is great for middle school students because it’s informative but also easy to follow. As a teacher, I would use this during a unit on American history or biographies since it connects well to social studies and literacy TEKS. I really like that the illustrations and fun facts help keep students engaged, and it encourages them to think about how one person can make a big impact.

Great read aloud chapter book style biography for kids (there is a whole series of these). My 5 year old wanted to know about an American inventor so we picked this up. It made for a great read aloud on a car trip - my husband and I learned a thing or two as well and enjoyed this book. Some illustrations help to keep the story flowing for younger readers. Our favorite was the part where Mr. Franklin tried to cook a turkey with stored electricity...perhaps the first electric stove of sorts!

This book is fab! It is a biography with pizazz. It's informational but funny. It uses words that kids will understand and can relate to. When I get my classroom, it will be in my library!

SUMMARY: The life and times of Ben Franklin.

REVIEW: As far as biographies go, I thought that this book was good. I am not usually a fan of biographies (personally, I find them boring), but this one was very interesting. The pictures were colorful, and it also had a lot of useful information from Franklin's childhood all the way through his career and the later years of his life. This book is particularly interesting because it has little anecdotes about what daily life was like during the years that Ben Franklin was alive. This biography is definitely a good book for someone to read if they are interested in artists.

This book told the life of Ben Franklin from from birth to death. All aspects of his life were included (personal, political, as an inventor, scientist, publisher). One of the main goals of the book was to show that Benjamin Franklin was an ordinary human despite his many great accomplishments. Dennis Fradin was able to do this by sharing both happy and sad aspects of his personal life. This book is a reading level of 3.2 and I would recommend this book for 3-5th graders. The chapters are fairly short and the pages have illustrations to add detail and hold attention. I would have my students read this book in order to learn more about our country or when they have to do a research project on a historical person. After they had read the show more book I would have them write a reflection or response to this book using pictures, similar to the ones in the book, to add meaning and detail to their writing. show less

This book explores who Ben Franklin was and what he did for the country. This book has lots of information and would work well for all ages. Ben Franklin was an interesting man and has done a lot that we take for grant or do not even realize that he made it happen. This book is in a series of “Who Was” books with many different famous people of interest. After seeing this one the rest would be great to collect.

Independent Reading Level: Grades 4-8
Awards: none for this particular book; however, Fradin did win an ABC Choice reward and an IRA Teacher's Choice Award for his contributions to Children's nonfiction.