The Man Who Made Time Travel Book

The Man Who Made Time Travel follows the work of John Harrison, an unknown, self-taught carpenter and clockmaker who ultimately solved the 18th century's most complicated and prestigious scientific mystery - measuring longitude. Sailors would unknowingly be lost at sea, and ships consistently sank due to sailor's inability to locate their east-west position in the ocean. This became such a problem for the nations of the world that the British Parliament passed the Longitude Act, which proclaimed that any who could solve the longitude problem would be awarded a huge sum of money. All of the esteemed scientists at this time were convinced that the problem could be solved through complicated calculations with the distance between the moon and the stars, but one man had a different idea: a clock with enough precision to keep accurate time at sea. This idea was quite daring, as the accuracy of most clocks at this time was quite dismal. Harrison, a young man who taught himself the art of clock making, challenged the prevailing minds of the day as he built a series of clocks in his quest to solve the longitude problem, each one more precise and perfect than the last. John Harrison spent his entire life working on his extraordinary clocks, the ultimately led to explorer's ability to identify their longitude around the world and thus explore the world like never before. His work showed individuals around the world the power of hard work and innovative ideas, and that regular people can do exceptional things.
I loved how this story made nonfiction feel like a story book, especially with the accurate, yet kid-friendly illustrations. I learned so much about an aspect of history I knew nothing about, but I didn't feel like I was reading an informational book at all! I think this book could be used for older grades, as it is dense in information, but could still be appropriate for a read aloud as the story moves at an appropriate pace.