Author: Andrea Beaty
Illustrator: David Roberts
Published: Abrams Books for Young Readers 2013
Pages: 40
Tags: Adventure, Diversity, Science, Fiction, K-5
Genre: Fiction
Analysis:
The main character is a girl, Rosie, who has dreams of being an engineer. She is great at building things, but her favorite uncle made fun of her for a failed design. Her motivation is given back to her by a distant aunt that happens to be Rosie the Riveter. After becoming motivated again she would build any and everything she wanted, vowing to never give up on her engineering dreams again.
This book is a great book in terms of representation. The characters throughout the book are multifaceted and diverse. Having a female protagonist helps the book serve as a mirror for young girls who may want to go into a STEM field but get discouraged because of certain ideologies which communicate that girls can’t be engineers. The Ideology that women are strong and can do “men’s” work is communicated throughout the text. Bringing in Rosie the Riveter, the symbol for strong and empowered women during WWII, as a source of encouragement is very symbolic. The message basically becomes you can do it because women of the past have done it and believe in you. The narrative also serves as a door as it can lead to young girl readers following their dreams.
The illustrations throughout the text also help add to the ideology. The small rosy cheeked main character is young and depicted as fun. When she is drawn at home, or in her “lab” she is surrounded by hundreds of inventions and gizmos. Many of them look silly and bizarre but I would argue that is the point. The fact that most of her inventions look as though they come right out of a child’s imagination communicates that it does not matter how silly it may seem, always use your imagination. The illustrator also uses vibrant colors on most pages to add fun imagery alongside the fun rhyme scheme used in the text. The light hearted fun aspect of this book allows for the social justice aspect of the book to be added without needing to be too serious. This creates the perfect type of book to read to your young daughters that you want the world for.