Literature Connections to
More Than Magnifiers

Teacher's Guides > More Than Magnifiers

Books connecting to More Than Magnifers should provide ways for your students to extend and deepen their knowledge of lenses through literature. Two books listed here are from the Einstein Anderson series. A chapter from them can be read in class, leaving the students with a challenge to solve for homework. The other book is a brief overview of the life of the inventor of the microscope.

Be on the lookout for other books that feature telescopes, microscopes, or cameras, and let us know about them. Non-fiction works and biographies on scientific breakthroughs, such as the classic Paul de Kruif book Microbe Hunters can be very stimulating reading for some students, as can books that reveal the microscopic world or other changes in scale. Two books about Galileo and his historic telescopic observations are listed under the GEMS guide Moons of Jupiter.

Einstein Anderson Lights Up the Sky
Einstein Anderson Makes Up For Lost Time
The Microscope

 

Einstein Anderson Lights Up the Sky
by Seymour Simon; illustrated by Fred Winkowski
Viking Press, New York. 1982
Grades: 4–7
In Chapter 3, Einstein’s water purification experiment is interrupted by Herman’s questions about eyeglass lenses.
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Einstein Anderson Makes Up For Lost Time
by Seymour Simon; illustrated by Fred Winkowski
Viking Press, New York. 1981
Grades: 4–7
In “The Night Sky,” Einstein Anderson and his friend Dennis observe the Milky Way and Jupiter and its moons. There is an explanation of refracting and reflecting telescopes.
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The Microscope
by Maxine Kumin; illustrated by Arnold Lobel
Harper & Row, New York. 1968
Grades: 4–8
A beautifully written and illustrated book, which, while poking fun at many things, portrays Anton Leeuwenhoek grinding lenses, the appearance of many common objects under a microscope, and provides accurate historical information. Although written in rhyme and with few words, its language is fairly sophisticated, and it can be read with delight by older students and adults. This light-hearted literary connection includes good illustrations of the scales of things as viewed through a microscope.
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To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

— William Blake
Auguries of Innocence


 

 

 

 

 

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