Epic Stories For Kids and Family - Accidental Discoveries That Changed Our World

Written to be enjoyed for kids on up, I really enjoyed the preface at the start of Epic Stories for Kids and Family: Accidental Discoveries That Changed Our World. It turned the book into more than just a collection of historical mix-ups that turned out to be successes by offering some valuable life advice.

The structure of Accidental Discoveries makes a lot of sense. Each discovery is given its own chapter and those chapters are grouped largely by the type of invention or discovery that had been made. Starting with some historical context, the reader learns what someone was trying to do followed by the accident that happened.

The reading level seems right for the demographic, though younger children would need some help with it. Infused with humor, the bite-sized bits of history are both engaging and informative. Even as an adult, I hadn't heard of some of the stories. And the ones I had heard before, there were still expansions on.

My only real complaint is with the close of each discovery. Every chapter ends with the reveal of what the accidental invention actually is. While I would like this near formula normally, I feel like this should only have been done if every section waited until the end to actually call the discovery by name. Some do, some don't. And unfortunately, the inconsistency bothered me a bit as I was reading. There were a few errors scattered throughout as well.

Instilling a love of reading during childhood is very important, even more so for nonfiction in my opinion. That this one also pushes the idea that mistakes can sometimes be good things turns it into a title I would very much recommend to young readers. What would the world look like right now if some of the people and discoveries depicted hadn't taken the risk?