Product Description

You've probably heard of Leonardo da Vinci... He is dead famous for: - painting the most famous picture in the world - designing the first-ever flying machine - being THE all-round fabulous Renaissance Man. But have you heard that Leonardo: - spent ten years making a seven-metre tall horse - thought pink was the coolest colour for clothes - loved to play practical jokes? Yes, even though he's dead, Leonardo's still full of surprises. Now you can get the inside story with Leonardo's lost notebook, flick through the pages of the Milan Messenger and discover dozens of the dazzling inventions the great man dreamed up in his amazing super-brain. Dead Funny - Dead Gripping - Dead Famous

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101947 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-06
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Customer Reviews

A good combination of facts and fun
I was recently given this book by a friend who tells me that her teenage children have enjoyed it immensely. I can see why. It has a relatively well written combination of facts and fun. (Of course, it errs by taking so much out of context in order to use a language teenagers can understand, but most of the readership is well aware of that.) I think that those who know something about Leonardo will find this funnier than those who've never studied him. Indeed, if you give this to a teenager, s/he may return with the question, "is that really true?!" and you can confirm what is contextual history and what isn't. So if you know a teenager who might like to know more about Leonardo and the late fifteenth century - or even if you don't - this book is worth a look, if only for a break from the seriousness of academia.

A good 'follow-on' from the `Famous Lives/Famous People' series, for an older child.
From the popular DEAD FAMOUS series of books `Leonardo da Vinci and his Super-Brain`.

`Millions of people know Leonardo da Vinci as the Italian artist who painted the most famous painting in the world, the `Mona Lisa`. Millions more regard him as the light-years-ahead-of-his-time scientific genius, mathematician and engineer who dreamed up designs for helicopters, tanks, submarines and terrifically tidy toilets, hundreds of years before anyone else ever got round to creating the real things.
In this book you can find out all sorts of fantastic facts and stunning stories about the man who is generally thought to have been one of the brainiest and most creative people who've ever lived.'

176 pages, split into chapters:-

Introduction
Nature boy
The rip-roaring Renaissance
Get in the know....at Studio Verrocchio
2-D or not 2-D
Leonardo a go-go
The disunited states of Italy
Have notebook, will scribble...
Ciao, big -ob! Gizza job!
Leonardo's humongous great horse
Jesus Christ...Supper-star
Water, water, everywhere!
Dodgy dudes and cruel contraptions
The Fresco Kid
Smile!
High ambitions and loopy larks
Epilogue

Written in a variety of fonts with humorous black and white cartoon illustrations throughout, this is a very good reference for an older child.