School Library Journal

11/01/2017
Gr 2–5—For kids who thrive on the excitement of fast cars, video games, movies, and robots, these titles look behind the scenes and test readers' knowledge with activities to see if they've got the right stuff. The focus is largely on the people who make things happen, such as engineers who study the forces that act on a race car and animators who strive to make the digital world as realistic as possible. Artists, writers, and programmers are related jobs that utilize game design. Glimpses from history, time lines, and short bios provide a big picture of development, and an archival photo of the first animation machine (the zoetrope, invented in 1834) is fascinating. "Build It!" activities include making a 3-D model or a flip-book. STEM connections, such as explaining how "frame rate" determines clarity of a movie or how biomimicry, copying animal movements and patterns found in nature, relates to animation, offer curricular tie-ins. At the start readers are asked to guess a true or false statement, then must read on to find out. VERDICT Beyond its high-interest appeal, this interactive series bears consideration for its challenging vocabulary and STEM ties.