Rosie Revere, Engineer

July 8, 2013
Beaty and Roberts return to the themes (and second-grade classroom) of 2007’s Iggy Peck, Architect to revel in the talents and insecurities of one of his classmates. Rosie Revere loves nothing more than to create Rube Goldberg–worthy contraptions during the wee hours of the morning. But an earlier incident has sapped Rosie’s self-confidence: after she created a quirky snake-deterring hat for a beloved zookeeper uncle, his response was devastating: “He laughed till he wheezed and his eyes filled with tears,/ all to the horror of Rosie Revere.” It takes a visit from another enterprising family member to restore Rosie’s faith in herself. The book’s message—that the unthinking words and actions of adults can have a chilling effect on children—is an important one, though Beaty hammers it a bit hard in her singsong rhymes. Luckily, Roberts compensates with comically detailed mixed-media illustrations that keep the mood light and emphasize Rosie’s creativity at every turn. To wit, in Rosie’s version of using every part of the buffalo, she doesn’t let a single baby doll appendage go to waste. Ages 5–up.