Maker of Machines

A Story about Eli Whitney

From the Series Creative Minds Biographies

  • Interest Level: Grade 4 - Grade 8
  • Reading Level: Grade 5

Eli Whitney’s love of inventing and pondering new ideas made him one of America’s greatest inventors. Best known for inventing the cotton gin, one of the most important American inventions of the century, he changed cotton production forever. A few years later, Whitney invented machines to make muskets that were identical. The first mass-manufacturing business in the country, his musket factory revolutionized the way Americans made things.

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978-1-57505-779-8
$25.99
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Interest Level Grade 4 - Grade 8
Reading Level Grade 5
Copyright 2004
Publisher Lerner Publishing Group
Imprint Millbrook Press ™
Language English
Number of Pages 64
Publication Date 2004-08-01
Reading Counts! Level 4.5
Text Type Narrative Nonfiction
BISACS JNF007090, JNF007020
Dewey 609.2
Graphics 1-color illustrations
Dimensions 5.875 x 8.5
Lexile 780
Guided Reading Level S
ATOS Reading Level 5.4
Accelerated Reader® Quiz 76957
Accelerated Reader® Points 1.0
Features Afterword, Author/Illustrator note, Awards, Bibliography/further reading, Index, Reviewed, Table of contents, and Teaching Guides

Illustrator: Jan Naimo Jones

Lerner eSource™ offers free digital teaching and learning resources, including Common Core State Standards (CCSS) teaching guides. These guides, created by classroom teachers, offer short lessons and writing exercises that give students specific instruction and practice using Common Core skills and strategies. Lerner eSource also provides additional resources including online activities, downloadable/printable graphic organizers, and additional educational materials that would also support Common Core instruction. Download, share, pin, print, and save as many of these free resources as you like!

Creative Minds Biographies

Meet some of the world’s most creative minds! Written in story format, these episodic biographies give clear, straightforward accounts of historical figures’ lives. Each true story is accompanied by black-and-white illustrations. View available downloads →

Awards

  • Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year, Winner, 2004

Reviews

The Horn Book Guide

“Creative Minds Biography Series. These books adequately narrate the major events in the lives of their subjects: Alcott’s writing to provide for her family, Mozart’s musical precocity, Jones’s rise in naval rank and unwillingness to accept defeat, and Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin. Black-and-white drawings illustrate the texts, whose styles range from Aller’s reasonable fluidity to Allman’s rather abrupt account.”
The Horn Book Guide