Making Contact!: Marconi Goes Wireless

Gr 2–4—Guglielmo Marconi's childhood fascination with radio waves drove his reading, study, and experimentation. Despite his lack of success in school, he learned from tutors, including a retired telegraph operator who taught him Morse code. Marconi's experiments resulted in devices to send and receive messages over long distances. By the time he was 21, he had invented a wireless telegraph, which he demonstrated in England. Among the users was Queen Victoria, who communicated with her son on the royal yacht. In 1901, Marconi's device made the first transcontinental wireless transmission when a signal from Cornwall, England, reached St. John's, Newfoundland. Kulling's biography ends with that achievement before Marconi turned 30. Curiously, the only example she offers of how his discoveries influenced the future is the role the telegraph played in events surrounding the sinking of the Titanic. Rudnicki's acrylic illustrations do little to enhance the text. The people seem wooden and their surroundings are static. Still, libraries needing additional biographies of inventors to supplement collections might consider this volume since there is little coverage of Marconi for this audience.—Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato