Ellie Engineer - The next level by Jackson Pearce
Bloomsbury, 2018. ISBN: 9781547601097
(Age: 7-9) Themes: Engineering, Friends. Ellie is an enthusiastic
engineer; she wears her tool belt all the time and loves to solve
problems and come up with creative solutions. She draws up the
plans, finds innovative resources to use and enjoys sharing her
ideas with her friends, Kit and Toby. Ellie's first attempt at
building an elevator with a pulley and ropes unfortunately ended in
disaster. With 24 bread and butter pickle jars balanced on a
tabletop, they tried to pull them up to the treehouse when the
tabletop slipped and pickles, juice and shattered glass fell on the
back lawn.
Ellie's parents decide she needs to help Mrs Curran, their elderly
neighbour, as a penalty for the pickle incident. Ellie proudly wears
her toolbelt expecting to do engineering jobs for Mrs Curran,
however on the first day she spends two hours putting invoices into
envelopes. As the week progresses Ellie uses her skills to mend some
broken cupboards, build a dolly to transport doll-making supplies
and create another elevator to take the supplies upstairs. Mrs
Curran has old-fashioned ideas assuming that only boys can be
engineers and only girls play with dolls. She gives Toby credit for
all the engineering projects and doesn't reward him with a doll like
Ellie and Kit are given for their work. Can Ellie help their elderly
neighbour when she needs it most and will Ellie's engineering skills
make a difference?
Jackson Pearce's Ellie Engineer - The Next Level is a
delightful, funny, illustrated junior novel filled with creative,
STEM-powered projects. There are sketches of Ellie's designs,
examples of pulleys, levers, wheels and axles and the forces needed
to build them. Without being didactic, the story looks at
stereotyping, not making assumptions and valuing each other's
abilities and interests.
This series is just right for a class novel for Years 2-3
introducing engineering concepts and encouraging young engineers to
design their own projects.
Rhyllis Bignell