An underdog story makes for high drama in this relatable take on the source material.
Adapted from a popular adult title that inspired a feature film and a documentary, this young readers’ edition tells the story of four young undocumented immigrants from Mexico who triumphed over more privileged teams at a robotics contest.
Each of them arrived in Arizona through very different circumstances but ended up meeting at Carl Hayden Community High School, where their various interests brought them together for a huge challenge—the 2004 Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition. These teens were up against students from colleges such as MIT and had to build submersible technology that could travel and take scientific measurements underwater. The story focuses on each of the four in turn. Oscar is the JROTC-trained leader, disciplined and driven; Luis is the strong and mostly silent presence of the group; Lorenzo is teased by schoolmates for his long hair but is a creative dynamo; and Cristian is a skinny, unathletic whiz kid who as a child loved taking apart electronics. Together, they worked on a vehicle, Stinky, made from low-cost materials that nonetheless blew the competition out of the water. This thrilling tale offers an intimate glimpse into the difficulties faced by many young immigrants. Anecdotes and details about each of the four flesh them out; readers will be rooting for these hardworking, determined teens.
An underdog story makes for high drama in this relatable take on the source material. (afterword) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9780374388614
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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