About This Book
Reach for this book when your child is transfixed by a screen and starts asking, How did they do that? It is the perfect tool for a young creator who has the 'maker' spirit but needs to see the long road of innovation that led to their favorite modern media. This book serves as a historical roadmap of animation, tracing the journey from 19th-century optical toys to the digital marvels of today. By highlighting the resilience and perseverance required to invent new technologies, it encourages children to view their own creative experiments as part of a grander tradition. It is ideally suited for the elementary years when children shift from being passive consumers to active observers. Parents will find it a wonderful bridge between art and technology, showing that every 'spark' of an idea requires hard work and history to truly fly.
What Parents Should Know
Sensitive Topics
The book is secular and direct. It touches briefly on how early animation sometimes used caricatures that we now recognize as hurtful, but it handles this with a hopeful focus on how the industry has grown to be more inclusive. The tone is educational and celebratory of human ingenuity.
