There has to be better options available. The opening pages tell about the mail carrier getting stung by icy wind and not letting the cold weather stop him. I’m sure the mail carriers in Florida rarely face such an issue. Later it tells about how the mail carriers sort the mail at the post office before loading it into trucks and their mailbags. Yet I am pretty sure that large urban post offices have different people doing the sorting than the ones making the deliveries, and possibly even different folks loading the trucks. I don’t believe in over-simplifying when writing for small children. Simple, straightforward text is one thing, but simplifying to the point of distorting the facts is not fair to young readers.

It’s a picture book biography of Robert Goddard, the “Father of US Rocketry.” After reading the subtitle, and knowing about the space race of the 1950s and 60s, I was surprised to learn that Mr. Goddard was born in the 1880s. It shares that because of childhood illness he was to sick to attend a regular school, but he pursued his interest in science via at-home science equipment and a subscription to Scientific American. It describes a variety of failed experiments, but demonstrates how he learned from his failures and persisted in new attempts. There was only one line I found confusing: the book refers to his successful rocket of 1926 as “rocket number four,” even though the preceding pages described his first three attempts, and then goes on to include tell us that “year after year, rocket after rocket…each failure taught Robert something new.” The message of years of persisting through failures is undermined when they suggest it was the fourth try that worked.

It’s fine, but it feels like it’s been done before. It’s your basic, “What do the zoo animals do all night?” book. I’m sure none of us will be surprised to know they have a dance party when no one’s looking. It does a decent job of including a bit of rhythm and rhyme. The illustrations are colorful and fun.

Richard’s third grade class at Carver Elementary School has been working on earning a pizza party for perfect line behavior for 16 days now. If they can keep it up for just four more days, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz will provide the class with a pizza party. Then, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz gets sick. Her substitute teacher is the meanest substitute the class can remember ever having. The last time the class had him, he took points away if they did not address him as “Sir”. They are all trying hard to earn the pizza party. But when answering the substitute honestly and truthfully in their writing journals, as opposed to writing what they think the substitute wants to hear, problems develop. The class cut-up tones it down, but not enough in the opinion of the rest of the class. Then Richard forgets his homework at school, he goes back to get it, but the room is already locked, and he cannot find the custodian to unlock the door for him. Will the mean substitute ruin their chance to earn the pizza party by the time Ms. Shelby-Ortiz gets back in three days?

Realistic third grade dilemmas will resonate with young readers.

When ‘inventors’ come to mind I abstractly picture a man, of man of Thomas Edison’s generation. Here is a book with not one, but 15 women inventors stories and more women inventors listed on the front and back end papers! Six of these women are from 2000 to the present, four are from the 1970s to 1999, and the other five are from the earlier 1900s. Three have been on the television show “SHARK TANK“.

These women saw a need and worked to solve it, whether at home or in the workplace from the first wind shield wipers for cars, to Kevlor, to anti-bullying apps, to paper bag folding machines, to lasers for removing cataracts, to hands free baby carriers, to debugging computers, and combating drought.

Here is a book for the equity of women inventors. It is awe inspiring, while at the same time, “I can see myself doing something like that to solve a problem.”

There are eight “contests and organizations that encourage young people to innovate” (94) listed on pages 94-95. Some of these are the ones the young women in this book entered to get their ideas out in front of the world.

It’s got a reasonable amount of information for a beginning reader. When one glances at the table of content, it looks like it’s got about 5-6 chapters, until you look closely and realize 4 of the 6 sections listed refer to the Non-Fiction text features included on the last three pages (More Facts, Glossary, Index, Online Resources). It really just has the two chapters: Bulldozers, which describes the different parts of the machines, and Different Jobs, which describes exactly what it says. It gets points for including a photo of a young woman as the bulldozer operator, and for including details about why the different parts are designed as they are. And it has a sturdy binding.

It’s got some information. It points out different kinds of bus drivers (some drive passengers to work or to school or on tours). It points out their responsibilities for keeping passengers safe, maintaining their buses (though to all bus drivers do that themselves?), and keeping to schedules. But it makes some cheerfully general statements that make me question: the book starts off with a girl getting on a bus for her first time and states that the driver helps her find friends. Really? Or did the driver help her find a seat, and if she happens to make friends with the others nearby, that’s pretty much dependent on luck. Do all drivers drive the same routes daily? Or do they sometimes cover for someone who is sick or take a tour group to a new destination?