Franklin Benjamin - Benjamin Franklin, American genius: his life and ideas, with 21 activities

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Brandon Marie.

Benjamin Franklin, American genius: his life and ideas, with 21 activities / Brandon Marie Miller.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-55652-757-9 (pbk.)

1. Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790Juvenile literature. 2. StatesmenUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. 3. InventorsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. 4. ScientistsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. 5. PrintersUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. 6. Creative activities and seat workJuvenile literature. 7. HandicraftJuvenile literature. 8. CookeryJuvenile literature. 9. GamesJuvenile literature. I. Title.

E302.6.F8M6544 2009

973.3092dc22

[B]

2009012456

Cover and interior design: Monica Baziuk

Cover images courtesy of: Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, Library of Congress, and Shutterstock Interior images are reprinted courtesy of the following: Charles Mills Murals, courtesy of Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology,

2010 by Brandon Marie Miller

All rights reserved

Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-55652-757-9

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

To Mom and Aunt Marty
I miss you

MY THANKS to the Chael family for helping to test the activities. Thanks to Paul Miller for supplying the computer expertise I sadly lack. My thanks to Janeen Coyle for visiting Craven Street in London.

My deep appreciation to the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, for use of the painting Benjamin Franklin Appearing before the Privy Council by Christian Schussele.

Id especially like to mention the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston, which has graciously allowed me to use its 1908 Charles Mills paintings based on Franklins life. The really fun aspect is that the Institute was founded in part with money bequeathed in Benjamin Franklins will to aid apprentices in his hometown. This book is much richer thanks to the Institutes generous spirit.

MANY OF Benjamin Franklins writings have survived over 200 years. When you read Franklins original words, youll notice that spelling, grammar, and punctuation have often changed over the centuries. Also, sometimes words were capitalized in the middle of a sentencethis was common and proper in writings from the 1700s.

ONE DAY, hed be a famous man in Philadelphia, in America, and across the sea in Europe. But on a Sunday morning in early October 1723, the 17-year-old was simply running away from his home in Boston. He climbed out of a boat onto Philadelphias Market Street Wharf, exhausted, his stomach growling with hunger, his plain working clothes grimy from the trip. The few coins in his pocket weighed almost nothing. He knew not a soul in Philadelphia. Where should he even look for a place to sleep that night?

He wandered up Market Street, gazing all about him. At a bakery he handed over a precious coin for three puffy, golden rolls. With the extra rolls stuffed one under each arm, he munched his way up the street. His coat pockets bulged with some additional shirts and stockings stuffed inside. He noted a girl standing in a doorway who seemed to think his appearance perfectly ridiculous.

He wandered down Chestnut Street and turned onto Walnut, all the while stuffing down his bread. But his wandering only brought him in a great circle back to the river. There, he handed his extra rolls to a mother and child hed met on the boat.

A flock of people headed up Market Street, and he joined them, shuffling into the hushed Quaker Meeting House. Sitting down, the lad looked around the plain building. No minister rose to speak, as in the Sunday church services in Boston. In the silence, he promptly fell asleep.