Honda: The Boy Who Dreamed of Cars - Softcover

Mark Weston

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1620141914 ISBN 13: 9781620141915

Publisher: Lee & Low Books, 2008

Synopsis

The life story of Soichiro Honda, pioneering Japanese businessman and innovative motorcycle and car manufacturer.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Weston is a former attorney, journalist, and Jeopardy! contestant. He is now a full-time writer. He lives in Armonk, New York. Katie Yamasaki is a fine artist, muralist, and teaching artist in the New York City public schools. Yamasaki lives in Brooklyn, New York. To learn more about Katie Yamasaki, visit her at katieyamasaki.com.

Review:

Weston presents Honda as a perfectionist, an innovator in his field and a model corporate leader, who encouraged his workers, listened to them and treated them well. . . . Yamasaki's detailed and whimsical acrylics add zest to the proceedings. A worthwhile introduction to a neglected subject. --Kirkus Reviews

This picture-book biography follows the life of Soichiro Honda, born in 1906, from his beginnings as a boy working in his father's smith shop to his international success as a manufacturer. Weston's writing is clear and accessible, even to those who might not know any automotive lingo. The book reads like a story, with fictionalization of Honda's thoughts and dialogue and emphasis on his persistence and ingenuity. Yamasaki's acrylic illustrations dominate each page. . . . Readers will find little men climbing on the engine parts and pieces of machinery swirling up into the air like dust, miniature cars going around a globe and down Honda's arm, and figures on tiny motorcycles on mountains as a backdrop to modern, colorfully clad men and women riding on the road. Yamasaki's creative composition makes the pictures interesting and dynamic. There has been very little published about Honda for children. This story takes a step toward filling that gap. --School Library Journal

Yamasaki helps to keep the tone light with fanciful painted illustrations that depict her subject set amid flying car parts and streams of tiny automobiles and motorcycles. Honda is neatly portrayed as someone who was smart enough both to stay in touch with his employees . . . and take early retirement. Though a demanding boss, Honda was not so much a driven, Olympian business leader, but rather a human being who found his bliss early on and stuck with it through thick and thin. --Booklist

About this edition

• Publisher: Lee & Low Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1620141914
• ISBN 13: 9781620141915
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Katie Yamasaki