Stories from Miss Bunsen's School for Brilliant Girls

Light as a Feather [series: Miss Bunsen's School for Brilliant Girls]
by Erica-Jane Waters
128 pages; ages 7 - 9 years
Albert Whitman & Company, 2019

Miss Bunsen’s School for Brilliant Girls is a new chapter book series that celebrates STEM STEAM. Pearl, Millie, and Halinka are a tight trio of friends who tackle all kinds of challenges throughout the series.

In Light as a Feather they are trying to design and build a flying machine for the Annual Girls of Science Games Day. A famous astronaut has issued a challenge: to build their flying craft from environmentally-friendly materials. The winning team gets to spend a week at her space center, plus a trip into space aboard a shuttle.

I like how the three friends work as a team, and their plan to use recycled metal from drink cans and re-purpose other materials. When a fire breaks out and destroys their machine, they rebuild, making do with old tomato cans, rubber hoses, wire whisks, and a few other intriguing “found” items. But will their craft remain airborne long enough? And can they pedal it fast enough to win?

This is the second book in the series about the trio of best friends who attend a funky old school. The school is old, underfunded, and perpetually plagued by squirrels.

The first book in the series, If the Hat Fits features an invention/engineering competition. If they win, the money could help keep the school open.

And there’s a third book coming out next spring: Penny for Your Thoughts. The blurb from the publisher says that Pearl, Millie, and Halinka put their problem-solving skills to the test in a maze competition. But… they find themselves trapped in a strange maze, and Miss Bunsen has to give up her book of secrets in order to set them free. They will need to keep their wits to solve their way out of the puzzle.


Review copy provided by the publisher.