June 1, 2022
Gr 1-2-A young girl narrates, showing her grandmother what she has learned in school that day. Empowering the child to become the teacher, Grandma follows along as the girl teaches her how to make a volcano. While the steps of the scientific process are not explicitly named, the story follows the general idea of experimentation. When the unnamed main character forgets what goes into the volcano to cause the eruption, she tries several (safe) combinations of household ingredients. Finally, she generates an eruption, which causes a small mess and big smiles. Good use of protective eyewear is modeled in the illustrations, though the search for white powders in the pantry and the cat eating some of the resultant explosion is not necessarily indicative of best practice in science. This book is a Step 2 title in the "Step into Reading" series and lives up to the expectation of simple text for beginning readers. The girl and her grandmother are both Black. VERDICT A fitting addition to early reader collections that could benefit from the addition of a title highlighting the enjoyment of STEM.-Jessica Caron
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