Rating: Needs Parent Supervision

Reading Level: Mid-late Elementary

I love the science experiments embedded in the book, love the age-appropriate mystery, love that a girl and a boy can both be STEM whizzes, and love that the kids are brave and curious.

Potential concerns:

  • A sibling tells another to “Shut up.”
  • Poor self-talk: a kid calls himself an “Idiot”
  • Peril. Kids doing dangerous stuff with no adult supervision (fighting bad guys, riding bikes at night in the dark, distracting Rottweilers)
  • Creationists conservatives will not like a reference to our “ape ancestors.”

I didn’t feel like addressing the issue of creation vs. ape ancestors today, so I literally got scissors out and just cut out that top half of page 90 (it was from a thrift store, not a library!) because otherwise the book was a great mystery with solid themes of the utility and joy of science mixed with resolute heroism.