The Boy Who Changed The World Book Review
I had an opportunity to review the new children’s book, The Boy Who Changed The World, by Andy Andrews. Andrews is a New York Times-bestselling novelist and corporate speaker.
The Boy Who Changed The World is an inspirational and true tale of several boys who, by each doing small acts, contributed to an effort that fed 2 billion hungry people in the world.
The story tracks Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, George Washington Carver, Henry Wallace and Moses Carver’s stories. Each helped the effort of feeding the hungry in their own special way. Yet each was interrelated with the others in the story.
The book weaves their tales together, showing how Norman was inspired to help feed people as a young boy. Henry Wallace also had an interest in using agriculture to help the hungry. When Wallace became Secretary of Agriculture, he hired Norman to work on the idea of developing a “super seed” variety of the corn plant that would yield more crop.
The book weaves Henry Wallace together with George Washington Carver, who took Henry Wallace out on nature hikes as a little boy and fueled his passion for using agriculture to help the less fortunate. Finally, the book shows how Moses Carver saved baby George Washington from kidnapping and death and adopted him…allowing him to grow up and be Henry Wallace’s mentor.
The lesson the book teaches is that everything you do matters. No action is too small or too insignificant. Even the slightest act can spark a chain reaction that could, indeed, change the world.
I read this book together with my 7 year-old son and 5 year-old daughter. They liked the cover art very much. When I asked them what they thought the book might be about, they both made reference to “saving the environment” and “helping the earth.” They also immediately knew what the setting was – a farm.
As we read through the book, the kids began to connect up the storylines, but it required a little prompting from me. They had a bit of a difficult time understanding that the focus of the story changed from one character to another. My precocious, and perceptive, 5 year-old said, “Some people might be confused by this book, Mommy. It’s called THE Boy Who Changed The World, but there are different boys, not just one.”
I was pretty impressed by that observation. Admittedly, I had to keep backtracking through the story so I could explain how each boy was related to another. But with help, we understood the interconnectedness together.
My kids liked the book and loved the illustrations. My daughter especially liked the butterflies that were scattered throughout the pages and served as the windup to the story. When I asked my children what they learned from the book, they were able to repeat the lesson in their own words pretty accurately.
However, as most kids do, they weren’t about to let me end the discussion without some serious questions:
“Okay, Mom, the book says EVERYTHING you do matters. So what if I flap my arms like this? Does THAT matter? How does THAT change the world?”
It went downhill from there, digressing into a competition of who could come up with the most inconsequential of acts to see if it “mattered.”
Overall, my kids enjoyed the book, and I think it has a great message. However, I think the message, in trying to be simple enough for kids to understand, gets overstated and confusing for them. My kids are right – does the blinking of an eye really matter?
Of course, I made the argument that it does. But they’re observant, and they realize that there are degrees of how much stuff “matters” when it comes to changing the world.
If I were to read this book again to my kids, I’d want the accompanying teacher’s guide or reader’s guide that is available on the author’s website at http://www.andyandrews.com (the site was down when I went to view the guides and free PDF downloads). This is a book that has a terrific message but it does require some lengthy discussion and explanation both during and after reading.
You can purchase The Boy Who Changed The World at Amazon for about 11 bucks:
