The Unexpected Light of Thomas Alva Edison

From New York Times bestselling author and news anchor Raymond Arroyo comes the first book in the Turnabout Tales series—a picture book biography of one of America’s most famous inventors, Thomas Alva Edison, and a story about never giving up.

No one thought much of young Thomas Alva Edison. He couldn’t focus at school and caused trouble around the house. But where others saw a distracted and mischievous boy, his mother saw imagination and curiosity. At only seven years old, Al, as he was called as a young child, was educated by his mother at home, who understood his potential could be unlocked with non-conventional learning, allowing him freedom to explore, dream, and be inquisitive. Those early years of encouragement, motivation, and loving guidance shaped Al’s future and formed the courageous man who would apply those valuable lessons to inventing the phonograph, the motion picture camera, the light bulb, and more.

In The Unexpected Light of Thomas Alva Edison readers will:

• meet the larger-than-life personality of Thomas Alva Edison
• hear an inspiring tale of how taking chances, failures, and struggles can lead to success and achievements
• learn about the power of curiosity and imagination
• see the importance of the words “Never give up!”
• take a carefully researched and actively told romp through history

The Unexpected Light of Thomas Alva Edison:

• includes an annotated list of resources and suggested reading
• features realistic illustrations by artist Kristina Gehrmann
• contains an author’s note by Raymond Arroyo, the author of the bestselling The Spider Who Saved Christmas
• makes a great back-to-school gift for young readers and teachers

The Turnabout Tales series highlights little-known yet fascinating stories of historical figures who went from underdog to hero, and the adults who inspired them to be true to themselves and do big things that changed the world.

Raymond Arroyo is a New York Times bestselling author, an internationally known, award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and producer.  He is creator of the bestselling Will Wilder series (Random House) for young readers, and the bestselling picture book, The Spider Who Saved Christmas. He is a Fox News Analyst and co-host, a former CNN contributor, and founding news director at EWTN News where he is seen in more than 380 million households internationally. Arroyo is the founder of Storyented.com, a literacy initiative. He lives in New Orleans with his wife Rebecca and their three children.

Kristina Gehrmann is an illustrator from Hamburg, Germany, with a focus on human characters and storytelling. She explores historical and fantasy subjects in a detailed painterly style using Photoshop and a Wacom Intuos tablet. Her clients are mainly book and tabletop games publishers, big and small, as well as museums. She also draws graphic novels, one of which has been published in the USA - The Jungle, based on the novel by Upton Sinclair. You can find out more about Kristina at www.kristinagehrmann.com.