Whirligigs:the Wondrous Windmills Of Vollis Simpson's Imagination

Description

Take a journey through the creative process that led folk artist Vollis Simpson to create his wonderful and whimsical wind-powered whirligigs and more in this STEAM/STEM picture book.

Vollis Simpson was a man with a curious mind—always eager to know how things worked and how to fix them. Growing up on a farm in North Carolina, he loved to tinker with machines. And when he served in the Army Air Corps during WWII, Vollis kept right on tinkering. His ingenuity allowed him to build things no one would have thought to create from scraps—a washing machine out of airplane parts and a motorcycle out of a bike.

After the war, his passion for metal creations picked up speed—turning into a whirlwind of windmills as far as the eye could see. Luckily, Vollis’s fanciful and colorful windmills have been preserved at a park in Wilson, NC, where visitors can behold his magnificent and towering creations forever whizzing in the air.

About the Author

Alexis O'Neill is the author of picture book biographies about people who made an impact on the world such as Homan Walsh (The Kite That Bridged Two Nations), Jacob Riis (Jacob Riis’s Camera), and Melvil Dewey (The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey) as well as books about friendship such as in The Recess Queen, and others. In addition to writing books for kids, she is an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. The California Reading Association awarded Alexis the Dr. Marcus Foster Memorial Award for making significant and outstanding contributions to reading throughout California. She lives in southern California with her husband and can be reached at alexisoneill.com.

Edwin Fotheringham is the award-winning illustrator of many picture book biographies, including Full of Beans, Blue Grass Boy, What to Do About Alice?, and Those Rebels, John & Tom. He is also the illustrator of the "Tony Baloney" series by Pam Muñoz Ryan. Visit edfotheringham.com.