Sharon Estroff

I was very interested in a fiction book that would help my grandkids think about STEM ideas. This was a disappointment. The best part of the book was the positive spin put on a failed trial: "The good news is, I learned one way that doesn't work." Yes, it presented engineering strength/rigidity differences between squares and triangles. Yes, it had a closing section on doing the experiment yourself with playdough and toothpicks. Yes, the characters learned thru experience that the square girding did not support weight. But it did not present anything to make children want to experiment themselves. The story already told them the answer, why should they go to the bother of doing the toothpick experiment? There should at least have been a line about "I wonder how a pentagon would work? Or other shapes? Or combination of shapes?
The plot of the book was very short, obviously meant as part of a series, and no chance for real character or story development. Each of the 3 characters had a specific trait or skill, and that was how they acted the entire story. There didn't seem to be any intrinsic logic to the magic (yes, even magic has some structure to it)--hidden notes & talking parrots appear out of nowhere to act as prompts to the children's thinking. And the "boom-da" etc was irritating to read and, again, didn't seem to have a reason for sounding, other than to alert us that magic is going to happen. But why that dumb phrase?
My granddaughter (homeschooled, 10 yr old) paged through it for about 1/2hr and later said she did not want to take it home for further reading. Maybe she'd already read it, maybe just wasn't interesting to her--she does read at a higher level.… (meer)