One question to ask. "Why didn't Inkling test this one herself?" A good answer says: a test that can hurt you is not a test. Some claims you check in the record.

One thing to do at the table. Rub a balloon on a wool jumper and hold it near some torn tissue paper or someone's hair. That is the same stuff as lightning, safely small. Then agree a family rule: kites only on clear days, far from power lines.

Make a two-column page. Find a famous picture of something from history. In ink, list what a source says happened. In pencil, list what the picture adds.

The grown-up layer. Franklin's own 1752 letter explains how to do the experiment but never says he did it. The story of him and his son William comes from Joseph Priestley, fifteen years later. The kite was not struck by lightning: it collected charge from the storm clouds. Dalibard drew sparks from a storm a month earlier in France, and Richmann was killed trying a similar experiment in 1753. Electricity was already known; the kite helped show that lightning is electricity. This book also carries a safety rule children can keep.