Reviews

The Boo-Boos That Changed the World: A True Story about an Accidental Invention (Really!) by Chris Hsu, Barry Wittenstein

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tracybabler's review against another edition

4.0

Thanks to Blue Slip Media for the review copy of this book — all opinions are my own.

This book is cleverly told in sections that show how each piece of the story could have been the end of Earle Dickson’s idea for the adhesive bandage. He could have created a bandage for his wife and never mentioned it to his boss. The end. But wait, there’s more! Each time Earle pushes on, a page turn reveals the next phase of his story.

There is ample back matter that shows a timeline of the events described in the story from 1892 through 1969–that’s persistence! Readers can also learn about other medical inventions of the era. The BOO BOOS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD would be a great addition to school libraries looking for interesting nonfiction for young readers.

lady_mair's review against another edition

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3.0

(3.5 STARS)
Cute & enjoyable to read.

sngick's review against another edition

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5.0

Love this story! What a great story to share with students to inspire them to invent something as a solution to a problem.

shannanhicks's review against another edition

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5.0

Great book about a common item. I love the structure of the book.

abigailbat's review against another edition

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This nonfiction picture book about the invention of the Band-Aid depicts the journey that Earle Dickson took to develop the self-adhesive bandages and get them on store shelves to help not only his accident-prone wife but people all around the world. It's written with a lot of humor as the story unfolds, from Earle's idea to help his wife with a roll of tape with gauze stuck to it to the modern individual bandages that are sold today. I appreciate that the book doesn't stop with the invention itself, but goes on to tell that they were not super popular at first and they had to make some tweaks and do some clever marketing (distributing free samples to the Boy Scouts, for one) to get them to take off. It's interesting to think about such a ubiquitous object as the Band-Aid and look at how it got to where it is.

Hand this to young inventors and/or fans of Pop! by Meghan McCarthy, Whoosh! by Chris Barton, or The Marvelous Thing That Came from a Spring by Gilbert Ford.

gls_merch's review against another edition

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3.5

Child-friendly fictionalized account of how Band-Aids were invented and improved over time to become the ubiquitous first aid tool. Fun early introduction to non-fiction for grade school kids.