Don Brown’s picture-book biography of Albert Einstein frames the great thinker’s life and perspective as outside the box from his early childhood on. Young Albert is a late talker, but his words are “clever and sharp” once he begins to speak. By age four, this child who sometimes has a furious temper also shows single-minded fascination when he is engaged, like when he is allowed to explore the streets of Munich on his own. He doesn’t like sports, soldiers, or the things that interest other boys at his school. But the geometry book given to him by his tutor when he’s 12 captivates him like nothing has before, and he’s soon delving into higher mathematics. Brown’s superb narrative is written in the present tense and balances short, decisive sentences with brief but lyrical descriptions that embrace the wonder of Einstein’s fascination with the universe. The illustrations, primarily pen-and-ink, showcase the singularity of Einstein and his relationship to the world around him. (Ages 6–9)

When he was born, Albert was a peculiar, fat baby with an unusually big and misshaped head. When he was older, he hit his sister, bothered his teachers, and didn’t have many friends. But in the midst of all of this, Albert was fascinated with solving puzzles and fixing scientific problems. The ideas Albert Einstein came up with during his childhood as an odd boy out were destined to change the way we know and understand the world around us . . .