Franz's phantasmagorical machine

Franz Gsellmann was born in Austria in 1910. When he was 48 years old, he started working on a machine that, over the next 23 years, grew to be 20 feet long. Made out of stuff from the junkyard, the amazing creation worked but didn't really do anything. While some grown-ups considered it a failure, children loved it and appreciated it for what it was: an amazing mishmash of art, science, and tinkering. This picture-book biography captures Gsellmann's maker mindset perfectly, emphasizing that even though he had to drop out of school and work hard his whole life, a tiny whisper kept calling him to "imagine, discover, and create." The busily detailed illustrations effectively capture Gsellmann's calm and deliberate work, even as his family, neighbors, and reporters clamor to see what's going on. The back matter fills in Gsellmann's story, including a photo of him with his machine. This tale of perseverance will do a great job of fostering experimentation and creativity, especially for STEAM projects and kinetic and found-art lessons.

Franz Gsellmann (1910--1981) grew up on a farm in Austria, and even as his mother called him to chores, "a tiny whisper called him to imagine, discover, create." Inspired by a world's fair exhibition, Franz, portrayed with pale skin and blue hair, devotes the next 23 years of his spare time to building a huge mechanical-kinetic sculpture out of castoffs from the junkyard, ignoring skeptical and scoffing family and neighbors. When his enormous, fanciful creation fully comes to life, "Its hum swelled to a rumble, then to a gentle roar. The floor beneath him vibrated as the behemoth began to whir. Franz's heart zinged," Anderson writes. Hamel's appropriately whimsical toy-like drawings underline Franz's indomitably optimistic spirit. If the text sometimes skews lengthy, there is no question throughout that its subject is making something beautiful for the world--on his own terms--in this love letter to both unquenchable curiosity and outsider art. All characters read as white. Ages 5--8. (May)

An Austrian farmer dreams of becoming an inventor. As a child, Franz Gsellmann longed to create, but life on the farm didn't leave much time for "dillydallying," as his father put it. As an adult, he's inspired by a visit to the 1958 World's Fair in Belgium, especially by a "gleaming structure" encompassing an elevator, escalator, and lots of colorful lights. Vowing to achieve his dream of building a "fantastical magical phantasmagorical machine," Franz tends to the farm in the mornings and spends his spare time gathering parts from the junkyard and tinkering in a spare room. No one in his family or the village can understand what he is doing, and when his first apparatus is complete and he flips the switch, it results in an electrical blackout. Despite ridicule from the villagers, Franz persists for 23 years, eventually producing an even bigger whirling, rumbling, and vibrating machine with 53 switches. Again misunderstood for its mechanical pointlessness, it becomes an object of kinetic art, mesmerizing the children who come to watch. Based on a true story, this account of one man's pursuit will leave readers pondering the nature of inventions--does a creation need a clear purpose? Delicately detailed artwork featuring a deliberately discordant color scheme gives this quirky narrative a slightly surreal feel. Characters are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A thought-provoking and stimulating historical episode. (author's note, information about Franz Gsellmann and his machine, bibliography, resources, puzzle) (Historical picture book. 5-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.