13 October 2008 HONDA: THE BOY WHO DREAMED OF CARS by Mark Weston, illustrated by Katie Yamasaki, Lee & Low Books, September 2008, 32p., ISBN: 978-1-60060-246-7

"The machine of a dream

Such a clean machine

With the pistons a pumpin'

And the hubcaps all clean...."

--Queen, "I'm in Love with My Car"

"A year later Honda took an important step toward making his dream come true. He began manufacturing the metal rings that surround pistons. These small steel cups in a car's engine move up and down quickly inside cylinders as they convert the energy in gasoline into the force that turns a car's wheels.

"Honda thought it would be easy to make piston rings, but his first ones were too rigid. They did not bend, and they cracked under stress. Ring after ring broke. So Honda went back to school to study metallurgy, the science of working with metal. Determined to figure out how to make his piston rings more flexible, Honda tried one technical approach after another. By 1940 his piston rings worked perfectly. He sold them to Toyota, one of Japan's first car companies."

As I demonstrate during so many booktalks at middle schools, picture books are not just for little kids. Given the level of sophistication needed to understand the technology and history illustrated in the above snippet, it is easy to recognize that HONDA: THE BOY WHO DREAMED OF CARS is a picture book that is far more age-appropriate for older readers.

In fact, every middle school would benefit from a copy of HONDA: THE BOY WHO DREAMED OF CARS, a well-researched 32-page picture book biography written by the author of the adult book, GIANTS OF JAPAN: THE LIVES OF JAPAN'S GREATEST MEN AND WOMEN. At this juncture in history, when the level of success attained by those who will develop the future of energy and transportation technologies could make or break the habitability of the planet for humanity, it is so vital that educators and parents catch the imagination of young people in the hope that some of our most talented young people opt for studying the applied sciences and grow up to become part of the planet's technology salvation.

HONDA: THE BOY WHO DREAMED OF CARS is just the sort of book that can help catch these imaginations. Amidst the incoming stacks of picture books, this one immediately caught my attention because, hey, I didn't know the first thing about Soichiro Honda, and I am very worried about energy problems and global warming.

Honda was born in a Japanese harbor town during the same year -- 1906 -- as the San Francisco earthquake. He (like me) was the oldest kid in the family. His father was a blacksmith, his mother a weaver. Honda was amazed at the age of seven when "a man drove a rumbling Model T through town," and that experience affected his life and, in turn, the world. Eventually, Soichiro Honda first became one of the world's premier manufacturers of motorcycles. Then, back when I was eight, during the year when JFK was assassinated and the Beatles were on the verge of their first foray to America, Honda achieved his lifelong dream: He began building cars.

The guy was a listener and an innovator, a determined guy who worked hard to find a better way of doing things. He collaborated with his young engineers to develop a radically new automobile engine called the Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion engine, or CVCC for short. (Take a look at those initials and you'll understand where he got the name for his most famous car.) When Civics arrived in America in 1972, they "were the first cars to meet the stricter emissions standards of the Clean Air Act passed by Congress." Then a gasoline shortage in 1973 caused many Americans to run out and buy Hondas because they were far more fuel efficient than American cars.

As the author concludes, "Many people today may never have heard of Soichiro Honda, but almost everyone knows his last name." Now Soichiro is dead, but his car company has spent decades putting GM to shame and his name lives on. Thanks to this excellent picture book for older readers, many young people will have the opportunity to learn about Mr. Honda and, hopefully, some will be inspired by his example to become innovators and entrepreneurs and might, themselves, become the topic someday of a picture book biography.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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