Ada Twist, Scientist

by Andrea Beaty , illus. by David Roberts

You’ve met Rosie Revere, Engineer and Iggy Peck, Architect. Now it’s time to introduce Ada Twist, Scientist! Andrea Beaty and David Roberts knock it out of the park a third time. Told in clever rhyme, Ada Twist is a little girl who loves to ask questions and leave chaos in her wake. The first words out of her mouth are Why, What, How, and When? Her parents can’t answer all of her questions, so they respond, “you’ll figure it out.” When Ada starts school, her inquisitive nature follows her. On one of the best illustrated pages, there is a rainbow of exploding color coming from a myriad of bottles, and Ada is wearing paint spattered rubber gloves and protective glasses. In the background, her classmates cheer her on.

“Even Miss Greer found her hands were quite full

when young Ada’s chaos wreaked havoc at school.

But this much was clear about Miss Ada Twist:

She had all the traits of a great scientist.”

But even when Ada’s experiments and questions land in her in the time-out chair at home, her brain keeps spinning with formulas and questions. Her parents, at the end of the book, are seen sitting with science magazines and thick science textbooks, helping Ada in her quest for knowledge.

“And that’s what they did—because that’s what you do

when your kid has a passion and a heart that is true.

They remade their world—now they’re all in the act

of helping young Ada sort fiction from fact.”

Overall, this book wins points for diversity in children’s literature (the Twist family is African-American), cleverness, and girl power.