Isabel Williams is no ordinary schoolgirl - she believes she's Isambard Kingdom Brunel reincarnated! A 9-12 year old novel which will enthuse young readers about physics and engineering, challenge gender stereotypes - and is an exciting mystery at the same time! Ideas and facts referred to in the novel relate to key concepts in Key Stage 2 science – Materials, Forces and Motion. When Isabel Williams first joins Class 2F of St Leonard's School, she seems so tiny and insignificant, that no one takes much notice of her. The only person to make immediate friends with her is Robert Morgan. But when the class has a science lesson, in which they are asked to design different types of bridge, she amazes everyone by contradicting Mr Phillips the teacher. No longer the timid schoolgirl, she dares to argue with him, insisting that she knows more than he does. That is only the start of an increasingly bitter conflict between her and her teacher. Robert is confused by her attitude and even more confused by the extraordinary revelation she makes to him during a trip to view the first tunnel under the Thames. She believes herself to be none other than Isambard Kingdom Brunel reborn. After this revelation she demonstrates extraordinary knowledge of engineering and, with increasing passion, assumes the personality of Brunel. Robert becomes more and more irritated by her behaviour, not knowing what to believe. At the same time, he discovers that aspects of her home life aren't true. The friction between her and her teachers culminates in a violent argument about Brunel's final massive project - the Great Eastern - and Is disappears. Only Robert knows where she might have gone... Voted by the public as the second greatest Briton of all time in a BBC poll, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) was a Victorian engineer of formidable talent. He was responsible for twenty-five railways, over a hundred bridges, eight dock systems and three ships, one of which was the largest ship ever built and remained so for nearly 50 years. Daniel Gooch the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway wrote of Brunel: “By his death the greatest of England's engineers was lost, the man with the greatest originality of thought and power of execution, bold in his plans, but right. The commercial world thought him extravagant; but although he was so, great things are not done by those who sit down and count the cost of every thought and act.”
Related
Related
Related
Related