Lines, Bars and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs

Readers may be surprised to learn that Scottish entrepreneur William Playfair, who invented pie charts and other types of graphs in the 18th century, wasn’t particularly methodical or disciplined. As a child, Playfair preferred drawing and playing pranks to mathematics, and his adulthood was marked by professional and personal blunders: “Every venture failed. Worse, his schemes often got him in trouble.” Becker (Monster Science) takes a fittingly irreverent approach to Playfair’s story, and Tremblay’s (Inside Your Insides) playful digital artwork does the same, even using a red dotted line to “behead” Louis XVI in a spread that mentions the French king’s appreciation of Playfair’s graphs. It’s a modest and quirky underdog story that underscores the rewards of outside-the-box thinking—even when that thinking isn’t always rewarded in one’s lifetime. Ages 6–9. (Apr.)