Mistakes That Worked: The World’s Familiar Inventions And How They Came To Be by Charlotte Foltz Jones
Review by Lauren
source: copy from publisher; all opinions are my own
Official Summary: Popsicles, potato chips, Silly Putty, Velcro, and many other familiar things have fascinating stories behind them. In fact, dozens of products and everyday items had surprisingly haphazard beginnings. Mistakes That Worked offers forty of these unusual tales, along with hilarious cartoons and weird and amazing facts. Readers will be surprised and inspired!
Review: Mistakes that Worked: The World’s Familiar Inventions and How They Came To Be by Charlotte Foltz Jones is a quick, interesting book. It’s perfect for older elementary students, but I think older readers would enjoy this too as it gives you some fun background information about popular inventions. Who knew so many of the things we love and use today were invented because of a mistake? The book is also full of black and white illustrations by John O’Brien, which always makes a nonfiction book even more interesting.
Some of the inventions that are focused on in this book are chocolate chip cookies, frozen dinner rolls, and even X-Rays! One of the things that I really loved about this book is that some entries even have a few fun facts included at the end. For example, one story is about tea and a fun fact at the end of the entry is that “thirty-five percent of the world’s tea comes from China.” Interesting, huh? I’m a huge fan of random facts so these were a lot of fun for me!
Like I mentioned earlier, this is a really quick read. I finished it in an hour or two but I’m sure some really fast readers could finish a lot sooner. However, hopefully the information within the pages will just make you curious to learn more!
that's true that it's always interesting to learn a bit more
This one sounds v intriguing!
xx
This sounds so cute and I love the title! I've been learning about a lot of mistakes that worked while in Rome (like how tomatoes came to be a main ingredient in the cuisine here and how they discovered that olive oil could be eaten and not just used for candles) so I'll have to check this out for sure! Thanks for putting it on my radar!!
Does sound really interesting, thanks for sharing it!
I think my six year old would like this because he is always asking me where stuff came from.
I feel like this would be a really fun short read for an evening! Can't say no to fun facts and things like these 🙂 x
-Leta | The Nerdy Me
I really love books like this as not only is it fascinating you can wow other people with the little known facts!
This sounds really interesting!
This looks like a fun one that you could pick and and put down as time permits. And even just open to any page and read a bit when you have a few minutes to spare. So many fun and interesting facts, too. Glad you enjoyed this one!
I have a 12 year old who really digs books like this. Chocolate chip cookie were a mistake? He would love reading about it! Thanks for sharing your review here.
I knew about tea and velcro, but the rest sound intriguing! I love learning about how things randomly came to be! :]
Oh that sounds fun! I love stuff like that. There really are an amazing number of things that were invented by accident or that originally had another intent. Random facts are good, too 😀