ON A BEAM OF LIGHT: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne, pictures by Vladimir Radunsky.

For the first three years of his life, Albert Einstein barely said a word. “He just looked around with his big, curious eyes. Looked and wondered. Looked and wondered.” He seemed different than the other children and perhaps it was because, even at a young age, Albert understood that the world was full of mystery. He spent much of his time thinking about the hidden things of the universe. “He asked questions never asked before. Found answers never found before. And dreamed up ideas never dreamt before.”

Part of the genius of this book is the way Berne leads a young reader to understand that the ways in which Einstein was “different” from other children, were the same traits which allowed him to later influence accepted scientific understandings. He was an ordinary baby in some ways, and not-so ordinary in others, but he was, like most children, an asker of questions, a dreamer of big thoughts, a person of unlimited imagination.

Gouache, pen, and ink illustrations are sure to captivate young readers, planting the seed alluded to on the dedication page, that our own extraordinary and fascinating interests may lead any one of us to be “…the next Einstein…”