Before Isaac Newton became the father of physics, an accomplished mathematician, or a leader of the scientific revolution, he was a boy living in an apothecary’s house, observing and experimenting, recording his observations of the world in a tiny notebook. Young Isaac studied the few books he could get his hands on, built handmade machines, and experimented with alchemy — a process of chemical reactions that seemed, at the time, to be magical. Mary Losure’s riveting narrative nonfiction account of Isaac’s early life traces his development as a thinker from his childhood in friendly prose, and includes an afterword, an author’s note, source notes, a bibliography, and an index.
