Review » Ada Twist, Scientist, by Andrea Beaty

Full Title: Ada Twist, Scientist
Author: Andrea Beaty
Year: 2016
Genre: Children, Discovery
Publisher: Abrams Books For Young Readers
ISBN 978-1-4197-2137-3

Summary

A children’s book, Ada Twist, Scientist tells the story of its titular character, Ada, who embodies the character traits of a scientist. The text is written in rhyming format. Like most young children, Ada is a pure scientist — she observes the world without bias or preconception and draws conclusions based purely on the results of these observations and numerous experiments. Unlike most children, Ada’s parents continued to indulge her questions and quest for discovery, long after most parents would have put a stop to it.

“And that’s what they did — because that’s what you do
when your kid has a passion and heart that is true.
They remade their world — now they’re all in the act
of helping young Ada sort fiction from fact.”

What I Liked Least About It

There is little to dislike about this book. Perhaps my only complaint is that some of the rhymes seemed forced — something that wouldn’t have been necessary if it was written as prose.

What I Liked Most About It

I like that it encourages children to continue discovery — asking the basic questions about everything instead of accepting pat answers. I’ve know too many adults who are content with “that’s just the way it is” and it saddens me. Children are naturally scientists — following a pure scientific method without ever having heard of it — and too many get their curiosity blunted before adulthood.

I also like that Ada is a person of color — her entire family is depicted as black, and that her classroom in school is diverse. Representation matters, and my children immediately recognized this upon opening the book — because the vast majority of children’s books in the U.S. depict white people.

Conclusion

I won’t often review children’s books — because my kids have hundreds of them — but this one stood out in the crowd as a special one, a new leap forward in what we can read to our children.