Customer Reviews

George Eastman and the Kodak Camera (Inventions and Discovery series)

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When I received this book I looked it over and figured it was probably intended for fourth grade students. I also showed it to my wife who was an elementary school teacher for 30 years and she told me she thought it was designed for third graders. Since except for six years teaching in Spanish Harlem, she had taught the rest of her career in Needham, MA, a Boston suburb, I figured we were both correct. I attended a city school system thus the difference in our frames of reference.
The book is a 32-page slick, graphic illustrated biography series. Its market is 9-12 year olds. It's like a beautifully printed fancy comic book. The four-color illustrations of George Eastman's life and career use the same comic book white bubbles to place the picture captions and dialogue with correct pictures. Since George Eastman's life was relatively unexciting. He worked in a bank to support his Mother and took up photography as a hobby. Photography was very hard work in those days and his ideas that made it much simpler and less expense were his chief motivation and the source of his ideas and resulting success. He made his basic break-through in converting wet plates (wet film plates) to dry plates (dry film) and then gelatin rolls of film while working in his Mother's Boarding House kitchen.
Since this book is obviously designed to catch the attention of non-readers, it does a decent job accomplishing that goal. I can still remember learning much of my basic Spanish looking at and reading comic books written in Spanish. That said, I feel this method does work. It's important that Americans know some of their great inventors and the businesses they created. George Eastman brought photography to the public and made taking photographs affordable and available to every man, woman and child. Interesting enough, one of the most famous trademarks in the world is Kodak (a made-up word that resembled the sound of Eastman's camera shutter clicking) and today Kodak is almost out of the film making business. If it doesn't adapt well to the digital world, Kodak's name may fade from the scene.

This is part of a series of graphic novels (in essence, non-fiction comic books) on inventors and inventions. This one is very solid.

It tells the story of early photography and does a good job of describing Eastman's innovations and his place in the development of photography. One interesting point is how his real innovation (the invention of photography for the masses) was almost accidental. He developed film, which was much easier to use than the traditional glass plates, but professional photographers found it kind of low quality and stuck with the more cumbersome glass plates.

Eastman then targeted his product at a brand-new market (average consumers) and a new pastime (snapshots) and vast industry (consumer photography) was born.

It's really good for students learning English or other reluctant readers who might not take on a more traditional text history.

My 9 year old son needed a Biography Book on George Eastman for a book report. He liked the Comic Book style it was written in. He enjoyed reading it and it helped him with his report.

This book is in a series of graphic histories for students in school. I have purchased many of them and find them easy to enjoy and understand. The books provide picture support and tell a story that contains good information. This book is about how George Eastman decided to invent film and an easier camera for people to use. A very nice story of an inventor that helped people take advantage of new technology and make their lives better. We are also able to make many photographs that we wouldn't have been able to without his inventions. Photography would have stayed the province of the elite and not the masses. Eastman made photography available to everyone.