Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor

Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor

By Jon Scieszka; illustrated by Brian Biggs

192 pages; ages 8-12

Amulet Books (Abrams), 2014

Frank Einstein loves figuring out how the world works by creating household contraptions that are part science, part imagination, and definitely unusual – at least that’s how the book jacket introduces this book.

But Frank wants to build something grander than a toaster and more intricate than his Rube-Goldberg alarm clock. He’s busy building a robot that learns to learn – or, in the parlance of I. Robot, a robot with artificial intelligence. But one that still follows Asimov’s three rules of robotics.

But what he really wants to do is build something awesome enough to win the Midville Science Prize and maybe save Grandpa’s Fix-It shop.

With Klink and Klank (robots, not car guys) and a lot of work, Frank develops an antimatter motor. But evil-genius T. Edison steals the smartbots for his own nefarious purposes. If you know nothing about subatomic particle physics or Higgs-Boson, never fear. All you need to know is that this book is full of science fiction adventure that will keep you turning pages till the end.

Even science fiction books have back matter. This one has Robot notes at the end and some bad robot jokes, plus some graph paper to sketch your own designs for smart bots – or whatever you plan to build for the school science fair.

Today we're joining other bloggers at the Marvelous Middle Grade Monday Round-up over at Shannon Messenger's blog. Review copy provided by publisher.