Book Review of Ellie, Engineer: In the Spotlight
The Children’s Book Review
Ellie, Engineer: In the Spotlight
Written by Jackson Pearce
Ages 8-12 | 208 Pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books | ISBN: 9781547601868
What to expect: Friendship, STEM, Engineering, Pageant
Ellie has a lot of great ideas – but one of her best might be joining the Miss Peachy Keen Pageant with her best friend Kit (and their friend Toby tagging along).
There’s so much to learn at a pageant. You have to walk a certain way, wear certain things, and perform a talent. Ellie dives in with her signature, good-natured enthusiasm, even though she’s a bit out of her engineering comfort zone. After all, the pageant has so many opportunities for interesting scientific explorations. The pool at the hotel is an excellent place to measure cannonball-splash height. Her wobbly high heels lead her to a fantastic invention – high heel balancers! And of course, she gets to help her best friend, Kit, with her talent – skateboarding. She’s attached all the lights and helped built the skateboard ramp with all of her scientific know-how.
But not all is Peachy Keen at the Peachy Keen Pageant. Melody, Kit’s unfriendly pageant rival, shows up in all of her perfectly girly-girl glory. She’s rude and makes fun of all of Ellie’s super cool ideas and her incredibly handy tool belt.
So when Melody proclaims that her pet rabbit Pancakes has been stolen, Ellie sets out to find the rabbit and prove that Kit didn’t take rabbit to sabotage Melody’s magic show talent. Can Ellie use her engineering chops to find the missing pet rabbit? Will she realize that her talent of Engineering is fantastic and not in fact embarrassing, and show it off during the talent portion of the pageant?
Ellie is sweet, charming, and a total go-getter. She knows what she likes – solving problems with engineering and science – and goes for it. Even when Melody teases her in front of the other girls, Ellie still uses her special gifts in science and reasoning to help Melody. A sweet book about science, trusting your gut, and being kind to everyone, Ellie is a fun and excellent role model for children. She’s true to herself and chock-full of empathy. Ellie is a delight!
And as a bonus, your child will desperately want to recreate some of Ellie’s super-cool experiments, so get your lemon batteries and circuit boards ready!
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About the Author
Jackson Pearce lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with a slightly cross-eyed cat and a lot of secondhand furniture. She auditioned for the circus once, but didn’t make it; other jobs she’s had include obituaries writer, biker bar waitress, and receptionist.
Jackson began writing when she got angry that the school librarian couldn’t tell her of a book that contained a smart girl, horses, baby animals, and magic. Her solution was to write the book herself when she was twelve. Her parents thought it was cute at first, but have grown steadily more concerned for her ever since. Visit Jackson online at www.jacksonpearce.com.
Ellie Engineer In the Spotlight, written by Jackson Pearce, was reviewed by Denise Mealy. Discover more books like Ellie Engineer In the Spotlight by following along with our reviews and articles tagged with Chapter Books, Friendship, STEM, Engineering, and Science.
