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Ask HN: Looking for kids books about famous people

21 points by marchelloy2k ↗ HN
I've been telling stories about various famous people (mostly scientists and some composers) that I am reasonably well familiar with to my 6yo. He loves it and is asking for more, but I am running out of [good] material.

Me reading wikipedia the night before and then paraphrasing to my kid is getting "old" and he is getting interested in reading on his own, etc.

Does anyone have recommendations for quality kids books that have various stories about famous people like this (e.g. what they did, how went about doing it, etc.)

Thank you!

38 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 92.9 ms ] thread
RichardHesketh
Maybe won’t tick all your boxes, but the ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ books are age-appropriate and our nearly eight year-old is delighting in building a collection of them. See https://littlepeoplebigdreams.com
edabobojr
We had the books on black men and black women in history by the same author. Each biography is only a page or two, but I found them interesting.
rnavi
Was about to mention this.

Its remarkable how kids (4 yo) relate to some facts in these books (like discoveries, slogans, values) and then recall the page/book when they hear a word two in totally unrelated conversations.

mccraveiro
I opened this thread to recommend the same book series! They were translated to pt-br and my daughters love them.
marchelloy2k
Thank you, these look super fun and sounds about what I am looking for!
helph67
I have a paperback '1000 Great Lives" edited by Jonathan Law, published by Paragon U.K. 1999, 517 pages. Previously published by Magpie Books U.K. 1997. First published as "The Mammoth Book of 1000 Great Lives" by Robinson Publishing U.K. 1996. Most pages hold text describing 2 to 3 lives. Lives are printed in alphabetic surname order.
seabass-labrax
'Three Cheers for Inventors!' is very fun, with a comic-strip style presentation (but still entirely accurate to history) - ISBN 978-1406301717.

Have you considered the most straightforward option: Wikipedia itself? I was lapping up Wikipedia at age 6 and I've never stopped reading it since. It goes without saying that I haven't run out of articles yet! Another advantage is that it's easy to print hard copies, and if the language is too complex there is the 'Simple English' language Wikipedia.

previousjs
Good night stories for rebel girls. Boys can enjoy it too!
skydhash
Kinda old and was in French, but my dad owned “L’encyclopédie tout-connaitre” (know-all encyclopedia) and it was wonderful. It was also 24 volumes and each was quite large but not thick. It had amazing illustrations and introduced anyone famous born before the 70s, great pieces of arts and various countries. Each subject was 2 to 8 page of texts with one or 2 illustration per page. It’s the closest to what you’re looking for. An example of what it looked like:

https://imgur.com/uzYpb32

I don’t know if there’s anything similar in English and modern, but I have DK’s guide to classical music and their History Book. And they are concise enough.

tomcam
“L’encyclopédie tout-connaitre” Looks absolutely brilliant. I would have loved that as a kid.
fiftyacorn
my kids learnt lots about historical people from the Horrible Histories series - both the books and excellent TV series(one of those series that appeals to adults as much as kids)
vira
The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne has been a hit in our household at bedtime. Each book in the series has Jack and Annie, school-aged brother and sister, travel back in time on secret missions to help famous women and men from history.
nothercastle
I never understood the desire to idolize famous people. Almost always the achievement was done by a group where the famous person took the credit and marginalized the other contributors. We teach our kids that somehow a single person did these amazing things when in truth they were the lead or figurehead of a larger movement organization or group.
marchelloy2k
It's not that I idolize a particular person. It's more that I use them as a vehicle to tell a story, build curiosity, and teach about various things. For example, the story of Paganini and how he had a strange/rare disease that made his fingers extremely flexible. Or Einsteins solar eclipse experiment and how no one believed him but he persevered, etc. Or how Oppenheimer assembled an incredible team and [some of] the challenges they had to overcome in the Manhattan project.

I guess I am more looking for interesting story telling based on real life event

dartharva
On the contrary, these biographies serve as a reminder that most of the famous achievers were regular people once who went on to achieve great things. It humanizes those that the public only sees as heroes.
fckgw
My kids really liked the "Who was?" series of books when they were younger and even read them as part of their school curriculum

https://www.whowasbookseries.com/who-was/

jonjlee
I second this as a quality series.

My kids also love the Ordinary People Change the World books by Brad Meltzer. Written at the right level for early readers, inspiring, and beautiful illustrations. We’ve had some great dinner discussions from things they’ve learned from these books.

https://www.ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com/

matheist
When I was a kid I enjoyed Kathleen Krull's "Lives of the Composers" -- and it looks like she's written a whole bunch of similar books (e.g. Writers, Artists, Athletes, etc). They're illustrated too.
cjwit
My kids are in a similar spot and I can’t recommend teaching them the power of asking a (real) librarian at a (real) library enough, if that’s something that’s possible for you. Those folks are special and my kids love wandering through the children’s non-fiction a few times a week.
MisterBastahrd
If you're looking for something a tiny bit different, try to find some Ripley's Believe it or Not books. When I was about that age, I got into my uncles' stash from when they were kids and I read every book cover to cover.
timeisapear
This was a favorite when I was growing up: "The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196827.The_Value_of_Beli...

realityfactchex
If you liked that growing up, then this one about the same historical figure (Pasteur) might be of interest (later in life), since it seems to tell, according to the comments, "the rest of the story":

"Bechamp or Pasteur? A Lost Chapter in the History of Biology"

(4.8/5 stars, 406 total ratings, 68 with reviews) at https://www.amazon.com/Bechamp-Pasteur-Chapter-history-biolo...

RomanPushkin
From my childhood I remember we had The Lives Of Remarkable People collection. Was available pretty much in any library. It's Russian-language Soviet series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Remarkable_People - those were pretty interesting read. I haven't read all of them, but I still remember the feeling after reading those few I had a chance to read.
FiatLuxDave
My family has been a fan of the ValueTales books by Spencer Johnson. They are great for that transition period going from reading to your kid to your kid reading for themself. I read them as a kid, my sisters read them, my nieces and nephews read them, and we still have about half a set waiting for the next generation. My favorite was probably "The Value of Determination: The story of Helen Keller".

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/ValueTale-Multiple-Value-Tales-Book/d...

WoodenChair
My son liked this book on Thomas Edison: https://amzn.to/4cxwCJC

It takes a "misfit proves everyone wrong" angle. He was 3 though when we read it. Maybe a little basic for a 6 year old.

samkater
Written and illustrated as a kids book, but even adults will be edified by the stories here [1]: 101 Orthodox Saints. All are stories of faith and are quite inspiring. (Just a heads up, a lot of the saints were martyred, so you should consider how to approach those conversations with your kids. The book is delicate, but doesn’t shy away from the reality of their deaths)

https://store.ancientfaith.com/101-orthodox-saints/

b20000
have you considered that at some point it might make your kid feel inadequate? i think when talking about success stories it is important to sketch the complete picture of someone’s life including what didn’t go so well … too often we only hear about overnight successes 50 years in the making.
mixmastamyk
Our library has lots of these. Might look there.