Ernő Rubik and his Magic Cube was written by Kerry Aradhya and illustrated by Kara Kramer. It artfully and colorfully tells the story of the creation of the most popular puzzle in the world: Rubik’s Cube. Created by the Hungarian inventor and professor of architecture at the Budapest College of Applied Arts, Ernő Rubik invented the puzzle not out of the desire to create a puzzle, but to solve one of his own.
Aradhya started from the beginning: with Ernő’s childhood. She describes him as a boy most fascinated with how things work, with a particular interest in geometric shapes. He grew up to become a professor, and one day, while trying to think of a way to teach his students about 3D objects, he thought to design a cube out of smaller cubes that could move around one another while still maintaining the cube shape. For weeks and weeks, he worked with different materials, finally getting it to work after observing the way water moves around rocks in a river. And while he was simply happy to have a new tool to teach with, he inadvertently created one of the most well-known puzzles in the world.
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