Newton’s Rainbow: The Revolutionary Discoveries of a Young Scientist

Lasky and Hawkes, collaborators on The Man Who Made Time Travel and other titles, provide a sensitive look at Isaac Newton. From an early age, Newton’s deep curiosity set him apart, leading him to question, experiment, and study the work of scientists before him (brief profiles of Galileo and Kepler are included). Throughout, Lasky places Newton’s story in historical context, weaving in such events as the bubonic plague and Great Fire of 1666. Of the apocryphal apple incident, she writes: “Here is what’s true. There was a garden. There was an apple tree. The apple really did fall. Isaac was not asleep.” (An explanation of how the apple incident might have contributed to his law of universal gravitation follows.) Hawkes’s soft paintings tenderly capture Newton’s discipline and the lifelong drive toward discovery. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)