A decent selection of inventions for patient kids who enjoy tinkering.
A compilation of zany Rube Goldberg machines for the dedicated aspiring inventor.
This book, co-authored by George, Rube Goldberg’s granddaughter, and Rube Goldberg Machine Contest champion Umperovitch, offers suggestions for everyday inventions in the spirit of Goldberg’s time-consuming machines that do simple tasks. The introduction describes simple machines and types of energy and offers tips and tricks for building. Each invention is broken down over several spreads that cover a description of the task it will perform, step-by-step illustrations and instructions, and a blank ruled page for readers’ building and testing notes. The projects are divided into chapters organized by level of difficulty from “Beginner (3-step)” to “Advanced (7+step),” with names such as (in increasing level of difficulty) “Apply a Band-Aid,” “Pour a Glass of Water,” “Dunk a Cookie,” and “Serve Fresh Popcorn.” The extensive backmatter includes facts about Goldberg, safety tips, suggestions for alternate materials to use, a glossary, and further resources. Steckley’s full-color artwork is fun and engaging and clearly depicts how the machines are supposed to work. While it’s debatable whether most of these projects will function in the real world, even with repeated tries, creative inventors may enjoy trying them anyway or coming up with their own improvements.
A decent selection of inventions for patient kids who enjoy tinkering. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781419761256
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
A book about engineering notable mostly for its illustrations of diverse characters. (Board book. 1-3)
Babies and engineers have more in common than you think.
In this book, Alexander highlights the unlikely similarities between babies and engineers. Like engineers, babies ask questions, enjoy building, and learn from their mistakes. Black’s bold, colorful illustrations feature diverse babies and both male- and female-presenting adult characters with a variety of skin tones and hair colors, effectively demonstrating that engineers can be any race or either gender. (Nonbinary models are a little harder to see.) The story ends with a reassurance to the babies in the book that “We believe in you!” presumably implying that any child can be an engineer. The end pages include facts about different kinds of engineers and the basic process used by all engineers in their work. Although the book opens with a rhythmic rhyming couplet, the remaining text lacks the same structure and pattern, making it less entertaining to read. Furthermore, while some of the comparisons between babies and engineers are both clever and apt, others—such as the idea that babies know where to look for answers—are flimsier. The book ends with a text-heavy spread of facts about engineering that, bereft of illustrations, may not hold children’s attention as well as the previous pages. Despite these flaws, on its best pages, the book is visually stimulating, witty, and thoughtful.
A book about engineering notable mostly for its illustrations of diverse characters. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-31223-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude.
A deceptively simple, visually appealing, comprehensive explanation of volcanoes.
Gibbons packs an impressive number of facts into this browsable nonfiction picture book. The text begins with the awe of a volcanic eruption: “The ground begins to rumble…ash, hot lava and rock, and gases shoot up into the air.” Diagrams of the Earth’s structural layers—inner and outer core, mantle, and crust—undergird a discussion about why volcanoes occur. Simple maps of the Earth’s seven major tectonic plates show where volcanoes are likeliest to develop. Other spreads with bright, clearly labeled illustrations cover intriguing subtopics: four types of volcanoes and how they erupt; underwater volcanoes; well-known volcanoes and historic volcanic eruptions around the world; how to be safe in the vicinity of a volcano; and the work of scientists studying volcanoes and helping to predict eruptions. A page of eight facts about volcanoes wraps things up. The straightforward, concise prose will be easy for young readers to follow. As always, Gibbons manages to present a great deal of information in a compact form.
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude. (Nonfiction picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4569-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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