Calling All Minds: How To Think and Create Like an Inventor

Gr 7–10—Part personal memoir, part historic study of inventions and biography, and part DIY instructions, this book packs in a lot. The result is an account of inventions and inventors and the thinking that motivates innovation. In Grandin's introduction, she states, "My road to becoming an inventor and animal scientist began in boarding school." She goes on to offer a detailed account of her isolated childhood and eventual diagnosis of autism, which serves as a backdrop for her later achievements. The chapters are organized by invention materials and types, such as "Levers and Pulleys" and "Optical Illusions," but each chapter contains such a vast amount of information and text that it is daunting. The author first states a personal account of her interests in the topic and then explains the historical context, including inventor biographies and a concluding project. There are not a tremendous amount of organizational tools, so accessing the information piece by piece is difficult. In addition, the very specific details of each story and history, and some of the diagrams, make the intended audience hard to determine. However, scientifically minded readers will find each section informative.