Another chance to offer children an amusing and sneakily urbane approach to history comes in Meghan McCarthy’s “Earmuffs for Everyone! How Chester Greenwood Became Known as the Inventor of Earmuffs.” Note that subtitle: Greenwood was not, in fact, the first person to make and market the devices. What he did was add a tight steel band that held earmuffs in place – and, crucially, when he was just 19 years old, go to the U.S. Patent Office. But why on earth did that make him so famous that there is now a Chester Greenwood Day celebrated in his home state of Maine? McCarthy, the author of other innovative nonfiction picture books including “City Hawk: The Story of Pale Male,” has a lot of fun with that question, gently guiding readers to understand how popular history can gloss over a host of complications.
Greenwood, McCarthy suggests, became part of history because he was a kind of model citizen. He was a tinkerer and an entrepreneurial type, and he was always looking to improve everyday objects for other people. Also, his wife, Isabel, became involved in the women’s suffrage movement; they held meetings in their house, and Chester went on to employ many women in his factory. After his death, people who knew and admired him “wanted his legacy to live on” – to the point that some even embellished stories about him as they proposed a holiday in his name. But the Maine Legislature – looking for a way to get the state into the national spotlight, McCarthy shows – approved Chester Greenwood Day.
Can a real live bear, if treated well and trained correctly, possibly become as tame and loving toward people as — well, a teddy bear? Can wild beasts and civilized humans really mix with nothing lost, and without some looming tragedy? “Winnie” answers both questions with a resounding yes. There is something reassuring and delightful in that idea, though it’s worth noting that it feels old-fashioned, even, to me, a bit uncomfortably so. The book glosses over all the moral...