Meltzer, Milton. Albert Einstein: A Biography. New York: Holiday House, 2008. 32 pp. $16.95. ISBN-13: 978-0-8234-1966-1; ISBN-10: 0-82341-966-5. Grades 2 – 4.

With clarity and sensitivity, this award-winning author has written a new biography about Albert Einstein for young readers. How is this one different from all the others? Meltzer presents the essential facts about Einstein’s life, without glossing over the great scientist’s shortcomings: his failed marriage to Mileva, his difficulties at school, his problems making a living.

The design of Albert Einstein is appealing. With generous margins, large font, and ample leading, this book would not intimidate a young reader. Well-chosen photographs are judiciously spaced with clear captions in a different font from the text.

What come shining through are Einstein’s many achievements and their significance to technological advances, like space travel, electronics, and the Internet. In clear, simple language, using apt analogies, Meltzer explains Einstein’s well-known but little understood theories.

This accessible biography is a good introduction to Einstein’s life and work. A timeline and bibliography are included. Other fine biographies for young readers are Elizabeth MacLeod’s Albert Einstein: A Life of Genius (2003) and Don Brown’s Odd Man Out: Young Albert Einstein (2004).

© Anne Dublin.

Originally published in AJL Newsletter, Feb/March 2008.

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