Rosie Revere, Engineer

PreS-Gr 3—By day, Rosie is the quietest, shyest student in her second grade class. But by night, she's a blossoming engineer, combining any spare parts and junk she can find into inventions of her own design. Her great-, great-aunt Rose is really Rosie the Riveter, and as she regales Rosie with stories of her airplane-building days, she shares her greatest dream: to one day fly. So Rosie designs a helicopter for Aunt Rose—but during its maiden voyage, it crashes. When Rosie hears Aunt Rose laughing, she's about to give up, but Aunt Rose encourages her to look at the big picture: before the copter crashed, it flew! Together, they spend all day improving the copter, underscoring that the only true failure comes when you quit. Instrumental background music dips and swells to match the highs and lows of Rosie's engineering adventures. Narrator Rachel L. Jacobs uses different voices for Rosie and Aunt Rose, and the story is complemented by the sounds of switches, wheels, and fans as Rosie tinkers with all of her gadgets and gizmos. A historical endnote describes women's groundbreaking contributions during World War II. The gently animated pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations stand out against bright white backgrounds, and viewers will love spotting the castoffs Rosie recycles into her inventions.