Fine Print: A Story about Johann Gutenberg

by Joann Johansen Burch, Kent Alan Aldrich (Illustrator)

Overview

Although he is credited with changing history through his invention of printing, Johann Gutenberg remains mysterious. In Fine Print, author Joann Johansen Burch pieces together Gutenberg's amazing story. When Johann was a child in the early 1400s, books were rare and sometimes very expensive. Each book had to be copied by hand, letter by letter. Gutenberg loved to read, and he often grew impatient waiting for the time-consuming bookmaking process to be completed. Young Gutenberg dreamed of finding a better way to make books. From his childhood in strife-torn Mainz through the many years of setbacks and bankruptcies, Gutenberg persevered in his belief that books could be made quickly and inexpensively. This is the story of the man who invented movable type and the printing press and gave the world the gift of books.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780876145654
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/1991
Series:	Creative Minds Biographies Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 0.15(d)
Lexile:	880L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 11 Years

Editorial Reviews

Gr 4-6-- Faced with a dearth of known facts about Gutenberg, Burch uses an evocation of the time, place, and society in which his subject lived, together with a process of deduction, to fill in some of the details of the printer's life. The result is an interesting and credible biography of the feisty, determined, and oft-beset inventor, told with a minimum of fictionalization. Aldrich's linoleum-block cover design and illustrations are striking, appropriate, and enhance the text. Unfortunately, the only reproduction of the Bible itself is a very small photo on the back jacket flap. Caselli's A German Printer (Peter Bedrick, 1987) describes in detail the printing craft in the late 1400s and is a good follow-up choice. --Tatiana Castleton, Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library, CA

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