Dotty Inventions and Some Real Ones Too

This quirky and hugely entertaining book shows us that inventions follow from people having ideas. Professor Dotty Dabble and her assistant, Digby, have ideas in abundance and children will enjoy some of the more bizarre notions: the mower-glider for instance – a contraption that allows you to hang glide and mow the lawn at the same time, or the voice-activated socks that never get lost. While they think about what to enter for the best invention competition, Digby turns up interesting information about real inventions. We hear how Ladislo Biro went about inventing the ball-point pen in 1938. Did you know that windscreen wipers were invented by an American, Mary Anderson, in 1903 or that Walter Frederick Morrison invented a best selling version of the Frisbee called Pluto Platter in 1955? Ideas we might have laughed at have sometimes turned into useful inventions. George de Mestral’s fastener for clothing which was inspired by burrs, the little seed-sacs that cling to fabric and animals’ coats, caused amusement. But now millions of yards of Velcro are sold each year.

The line between the ludicrous and the useful is a thin one it seems: this book with its variety of text and amusing illustrations is likely to get children thinking laterally and creatively.