Sarah Aronson’s wonderful biography Just Like Rube Goldberg opens by engaging the reader with an intriguing question.

“Question: How do you become a successful, award-winning artist and famous inventor without ever inventing anything at all? (This is not a trick question.”

Often in picture book biographies, the narrative voice intentionally recedes behind the story. But here, Aronson, brings the storyteller’s voice to the front, asking us questions, and making observations and judgments. It works incredibly well to frame the accomplishments of an important person whose work is hard to categorize.

Of course the story also hits all the important points of biography: we learn about Goldberg’s childhood, his training, his challenges and how he overcame them. The art by Robert Neubecker includes reproductions of Goldberg’s comics as well as the artist’s own full-color exuberant Rube Goldberg machines.

Activities and discussion guide for the book are here.

Just Like Rube Goldberg by Sarah Aronson, illustrated by Matthew Neubecker. Beach Lane Books: 2019.