Birth of the Bicycle: A Bumpy History of the Bicycle in America 1819-1900

by Sarah Nelson, Iacopo Bruno (Illustrator)

Overview

Three cheers for the birth of the bicycle! Hop on for a jaunty, rhythmic ride through a playfully illustrated history.


From the pedal-less, brakeless wooden velocipedes of the 1800s to the sleek racing machines of today, from a luxury for the wealthy to a lifeline for the working class, the bicycle’s journey is a study in invention, innovation, and ingenuity. Sarah Nelson’s affectionate and poetic tribute covers almost a century of the two-wheeler’s development, while Iacopo Bruno’s bold, bright artwork illuminates this marvel of engineering. Cycling enthusiasts as well as budding mechanical engineers, inventors, tinkerers, and dreamers will revel in this fact-packed nonfiction adventure story—complete with a time line and other lively back matter designed to remind readers how truly extraordinary everyday objects can be.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536213928
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	07/02/2024
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	8.25(w) x 11.31(h) x 0.38(d)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Sarah Nelson is a poet and author whose titles include Frogness, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes; A Park Connects Us, illustrated by Ellen Rooney; and the I Like the Weather series, illustrated by Rachel Oldfield. She lives in Minnesota with her family.

Iacopo Bruno is a graphic designer and illustrator whose illustrations can be found in the acclaimed picture books Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France and Anything but Ordinary Addie: The True Story of Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic, both by Mara Rockliff. He is also the illustrator of Bartali’s Bicycle: The True Story of Gino Bartali, Italy’s Secret Hero by Megan Hoyt and the School for Good and Evil series written by Soman Chainani. Iacopo Bruno lives in Milan, Italy, with his family.

Editorial Reviews

04/15/2024

Polished illustrations by Italian artist Bruno draw immediate attention in this bicycle history. Digitally colored pencil drawings of 19th-century city scenes supply historical context, while images of the early machines make it easier to understand how novel the contraptions were amid horse-and-carriage transport. Nelson’s sometimes shaky verse introduces the iterations, including an early pedal-less velocipede from Germany, upon which riders sat, steered, and hoped for the best (“Laws were written and hastily passed/ No velocipedes on the walking paths!”), and a brake-less version that arrived from France. Not until the appearance of brakes, rubber tires, spokes, and other features in the 1890s did bicycles become affordable and popular, including with women riders, who “were off with a zoom/ in split skirts and high boots and bold pantaloons.” The book, like the bicycle, moves briskly along, tracing a path from luxury item to mode of transportation for the masses. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. More information about bicycles concludes. Ages 6–9. (June)

Publishers Weekly

2024-04-05
A dazzling gallery of early run-ups to the modern “safety” bike, with breezy commentary.

Nelson begins with the “clunky” German velocipede of 1817. While taking a cavalier approach to rhyme and meter, she chronicles successive inventions and refinements that at last delivered a vehicle that was able to handle rough American roads and was available to the general populace: “Women especially, were off with a zoom / in split skirts and high boots and bold pantaloons.” They were also cheap enough to go from being “just a toy for the wealthier classes” to “pedal-powered freedom / for the big, bustling masses.” The bouncy narrative is rich in specific references to inventors and early mechanisms. In vividly evocative galleries, races, and crowded street scenes, Bruno provides precisely detailed images of huge-wheeled penny farthings and other antique models, generally rattling past astonished spectators as beleaguered riders struggle to maintain control. Women strike confident poses, many of the men sport stylish mustaches and mutton chops beneath elegant top hats, and all the human figures, including dark-skinned ones in several scenes, look like fashion plates from various periods of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In her prose recap, the author notes that bicycles still provide economical, eco-friendly transportation. “Together,” she concludes, “we could pedal our way to a happier, healthier world.”

Wheels out a chapter in the history of technology that merits greater recognition. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews