Born and raised in Hungary, Vancouver illustrator George Juhasz has worked on more than 100 animation projects-including The Beatles' movie The Yellow Submarine. Having recently illustrated Leslie E. Owen's Pacific Tree Frogs (Tradewind $10.95), Juhasz has turned his hand to depicting the world's most famous scientist in Rescuing Einstein's Compass (Tradewind $22.95).

The story is by Shulamith Levey Oppenheim whose husband was a friend of Albert Einstein's. Einstein was best man at her wedding. During the ceremony, the ring dropped through a hole in Einstein's pocket. "He stared straight ahead without a blink,"; she says, "not moving a muscle, while it was fished out!"; That memory was the grist for Rescuing Einstein's Compass.

The children's story concerns the compass that Einstein was given by his father. Herr Professor Einstein goes sailing with a young boy named Theo-and Theo manages to save the day after the great physicist manages to drop his compass overboard while explaining the concept of magnetism. "The compass was my first mystery,"; Einstein says, grateful to Theo for diving and retrieving it. "and all my life I have worked to solve mysteries."; Compass 1-896580-31-9; Frogs 1-896580-42-4

[BCBW Winter 2003]