When it's Hot Enough to Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk...

 

This book was published three years ago, but because of the heat wave in the northeast, it seems like a perfect pick for today. It got so hot in Oregon that roads buckled and Portland shut off the streetcars because heat was melting the cables. Scorching temperatures soared to 116 F in some places – hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk!

Iqbal and His Ingenious Idea: How a Science Project Helps One Family and the Planet 

by Elizabeth Suneby; illus. by Rebecca Green 

32 pages; ages 5-10

‎Kids Can Press, 2018

theme: STEM, sustainability, problem-solving

Iqbal lives in Bangladesh and it’s the monsoon, when “gusts of rain whip across your face and make you squint your eyes.” At home, Iqbal’s mother cooks the meals over an indoor fire. The smoke irritates her lungs, causing her and the baby to cough.

Iqbal wants to win the prize at the science fair so he can use the prize money to buy his mother a gas cookstove. He’s got a month to come up for a project that fits with the theme of sustainability.

What I like about this book: This is a fun story to read, while broaching a serious topic at the same time. We see Iqbal trying to come up with ideas. He sketches gadgets with gears, he conceives of contraptions, he dreams of devices. Could he build a smokeless cooker? With help from his teacher, they get ideas from the internet, and Iqbal designs a solar cooker from things most people have in his village: broken umbrellas. He lines his umbrella with foil, borrows a soot-blackened cookpot, and is ready to test his stove. All he needs is a sunny day to test it.

Beyond the Books:

Can you really fry an egg on the sidewalk? Probably not. Eggs need to reach a temperature of 158 F to cook through – hard to do on a white surface. A better idea would be to fry an egg on the hood of a car sitting under the hot sun (remember: eggs will run, and car hoods are curved). One Arizona girl had a brilliant idea: put the greenhouse effect to use and fry an egg inside a car on a hot day. You can watch her video here. It’s also a good reminder of why you don’t leave pets – or people – inside cars.

Make your own solar cooker. Here’s how to turn a pizza box into a solar oven, and here’s how to turn any kind of box into a cooker.  You can also use an old umbrella and lots of shiny foil, like Iqbal. A good test is to use your oven to make s’mores.

We’ll join Perfect Picture Book Friday once they resume. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy found on the library shelves.