Odd Boy Out Young Albert Einstein

One of my favorite genres of children's literature is the biography.  I especially love picture book biographies. Even as and adult,  I learn so much when I read a picture book biography.  Biographies share rich stories about people who have helped shape our world.   

Odd Boy Out by Don Brown is an interesting biographical story about Albert Einstein.  Einstein is such a fascinating person to study.  Children love learning about the eccentric scientist with the big hair!  Brown does a super job of showing the reader Einstein was human. This particular biography does not spend much time on Einstein's theory of relativity.  Instead, the reader learns about Einstein's childhood and the events that shaped his scientific mind.  

Biographies tend to share a lot of information with the reader --too much information to remember!  When readers are presented with a lot of information they need to determine what is important to keep in their brain files.  Determining importance is often a challenging skill for kids.  They want to remember it all.  Before children can determine what information they need to remember and what information they can discard, they need to know their purpose for reading.  For example, are they looking for new facts? Seeking answers to questions?  Learning how to complete a task?  Once children identify their purpose of reading, they can decide what type of information that are going to try and remember.

Before reading Odd Boy Out, take a moment and activate your child's schema (background knowledge).  Ask your child what they already know about Albert Einstein.  You can share what you know about Einstein too!  After sharing, set your purpose for reading by asking your child what they hope to learn about Einstein.

As you read the story about Einstein, prompt your chid with the following thinking stems:

• I want to remember...
• It's interesting that...
• One thing we should notice is...

You can also use the above stems to model your thinking for your child. Not only is the book good for working on determining importance, but it is also good for making text-to-self connections.  As you read the story, you will see Einstein was often the "odd boy" in society.  See if your child can make any connections between Einstein and their own life.  

Once you are finished reading the story (be sure to read the author's note at the end!), ask your child what is the most important thing they want to remember about Einstein.