Tuesday, August 11, 2009  A Passion for Reading  What did
inventor Thomas Edison, scientist Albert Einstein, and teacher
Annie Sullivan have in common? As young people they all had a
passion for reading and books.  Edison said that his mother
“taught me to read good books quickly and correctly, and as this
opened up a great world in literature, I have always been very
thankful for this early training." Of course that quotation made
it into my biography of Edison, Inventing the Future. A plug for
books and for mothers! (Although I still wonder what he meant by
reading correctly. Is there a wrong way to read?)  As you might
expect, young Tom Edison was especially interested in books
having to do with science. Inventing the Future notes that:
"When a book on chemistry seized his imagination, Tom set up a
laboratory in the cellar of his house and gathered a large
amount of chemicals to stock it. He spent many an hour mixing
acids and other chemicals and alarming his parents with the
occasional explosion."  When T