Henry Ford: Building Cars for Everyone (Historical American Biographies) [Library Binding]

Pat McCarthy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8-Readers are introduced to the many sides of Ford: engineer, doting father, pacifist, businessman, and eccentric. Black-and-white photographs and sidebars offer enough extra information to give readers a true sense of the time period, 1896-1947. The author is careful to note both the positive and negative details, thereby creating a balanced account. The coverage of Ford's business is quite revealing. Readers are shown the advantages of his assembly line to production as well as the harsh pre-union working conditions faced by employees. Students will find this volume useful for reports, and those readers with engineering and automobile interests will find it interesting.
Suzanne Crowder, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, KY
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Library Binding: 128 pages
• Publisher: Enslow Publishers (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076601620X
• ISBN-13: 978-0766016200
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,125,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #95 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( F ) > Ford, Henry

More About the Author

Pat McCarthy taught elementary school for years and is now writing for the kids she used to teach. She always wanted to be a writer and as a child spent many hours sitting in an apple tree reading a book. Her work has been published in many magazines, including Highlights for Children, Cricket, Pockets, Children's Digest and others. She has written 14 books. The latest is Heading West:Life with the Pioneers which is part of Chicago Review Press's For Kids series. The book is packed full of information and has 21 activities for kids to do.
Pat lives in Greenville, Ohio with her two cats, Oz and Dorothy. When she's not writing, she enjoys scrapbooking, photography, birding, travel and word games.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars For older kids, May 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Henry Ford: Building Cars for Everyone (Historical American Biographies) (Library Binding)

My son requested this book for a book report that he's doing on a famous American. Although the book is listed for ages 9-12, it's really more appropriate for 12 and above. My son found it difficult to stay interested in this book as it's not written in a format that keeps a 9-year-old intrigued. My son is an excellent reader, so being unable to read wasn't the problem. The book gives almost too much detail about incidents and experiences in Henry Ford's life. Short and sweet might have worked better if this book is being marketed for the 9-12 age group.

4.0 out of 5 stars Henry Ford: Building Cars For Everyone, April 15, 2009

By 

David L. Golob (Calabasas, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Henry Ford: Building Cars for Everyone (Historical American Biographies) (Library Binding)

In this biography Henry Ford is born in Dearborn, Michigan in 1863. Henry at the age of twelve starts to build watches. His father notices his talent and sets up Henry for a job at the Flowers Brothers Machine Shop. Later in 1896 Henry finished building a Quadricycle in his garage. Henry and his friend Jim Bishop had worked hard on it for months. Finally, Henry finished it. As he tried to take the car out of his he relized it wouldn't fit. So he took an object and smashed the brick garage so the car could come it. It was pouring rain. Later in 1908 he created the first Model T and sold it for $850. Then he dropped the price to $575 dollars without the assembly line. Then when he used the assembly line to make the first car start to finish on the assembly line the priced dropped again to $290. It stayed that way until 1927.
I give Henry Ford: Building Cars for Everyone a ranking of 8 out 10. I really liked the book because it had facts that I could not find anywhere else. It says on page 14 "His mother did of complications after childbirth." That was one example of a fact that I could not find anywhere else. Another is, on page 27 "Ford was thrilled to meet Thomas A. Edison, who was duly impressed when someone told him about the gasoline powered car." I could not find a piece of information as detailed as that anywhere else.
Somethings I didn't like was it didn't go into detail on some of his other achievements beside Model T and the assembly line.
I recommend this book for people who are interested in cars or Henry Ford. They would like this book because it talks about his greatest achievement and was easy to read.