Christian Hill

What an Idea!

Biography

The Inventions that Changed the World


What if central heating was invented to protect a fish farm from the cold? What if the modern pencil was developed in France only to spite England? What if the microwave oven was born from the gluttony of an engineer specialised in the development of radar systems?

What leads the human mind to find an idea? The right one, the winning one, the one that will change the lives of millions of people?

We discover the circumstances that led 18 historic inventors to have just that idea. What they were doing, what they were thinking, what they were saying at that fateful moment when the spark that would change everything fired in their brains?

  • What’s behind an invention that has revolutionised our way of life? An epiphany, a brilliant idea and, many times, a great story!

  • Spanning a path of over two thousand years, the book explores how the first computer, telephone, radio, train, bicycle, car and many more inventions were designed.

Publisher: Edizioni EL
Target: 8-10
Year: 2016
Author
Christian Hill
Christian Hill is an author and screenwriter. He has written many children’s stories including Il Ladro dei Ceili (The Sky Thief), Rizzoli, winner of the Cento Children’s Literature Prize in 2019, and Olga, una Storia di Pace in Tempo di Guerra (Olga, A Story of Peace in Wartime), Rizzoli, which entered the Italian IBBY Honour List in 2023. His works have been translated into several languages, some of which he can recognise and some of which he can’t. He loves music, role-playing games and his armchair.
Discover More

Other stories you might like