Title: The Invisible Boy

Author: Trudy Ludwig

Genre: Science Fiction

Summary: The invisible boy Brian is never noticed, even by the teacher!  He eats lunch alone, plays alone and is never picked for anything. One day there’s a new boy in class, who Brian immediately becomes friends with and they attempt to gain acceptance in the class. Eventually the rest of the class realizes Brain exists and they all play together, real and imaginary!

Review: This book is very intriguing give that while Brian is unnoticed by the class he is drawn in back and white, representing his isolation. After Brian becomes friends with the new boy and the rest of class starts to notice him, the color slowly seeps in. I find this very interesting and an amazing concept to teach the children to be accepting of everyone or else the world will be dull and sad.

Content Area Connection:

• Social Studies: The concept of community and acceptance can be taught through social studies as well as this story. Diversity and acceptance has been a huge problem in our country throughout history and using these studies to discuss previous excluded groups can relate to Brian’s excluded feeling.
• Science: Studying the actuality of being invisible and how this can be modeled scientifically will be interesting for the students. Creating an experiment and seeing what can or cannot actually disappear, such as ice which actually melts, but tends to look like its disappearing.