Books like Henry Ford: Young Man With Ideas

Thoroughly enjoyable and perfect for my seven-year-old son. One of his favorite books is Farmer Boy and he loves engineering (particularly mechanical engineering) and this book was a perfect blend of the two. I have a feeling he and Henry Ford would have been fast friends ;-) The Childhood of Famous Americans series is written by a variety of authors, and I'm finding some are superior to others. This is a good one. You feel part of Ford's life, rather than just a spectator marched past noteworthy moments of his history, and it does a good job of showing not only a few "everyday life" moments but also how Ford was so driven and inspired with tinkering and trying out his ideas from a young age. It does span beyond childhood with roughly the second half covering his adult years with inventing the quadricycle on to the Model T and his friendship with Thomas Edison. We enjoyed the personal connection of my dad being from Dearborn and, if we ever get to that part of the country, would love to visit Greenfield Village and see the history Ford preserved there. Note that Catherine Ruddiman (co-author) is the niece of Henry Ford -- her mother was Ford's sister, Margaret, to whom she dedicates the book, and her father was the brother of Edsel Ruddiman (Edsel was a dear friend of Henry Ford's and Henry and his wife named their son after him). This book is based on "Memories of My Brother Henry Ford" by Catherine's mother, Margaret Ford Ruddiman., which is, unfortunately, no longer in print.