Review: This book is really a compilation of a bunch of different articles written by a bunch of different people. I enjoyed many of them, didn’t really care for some of them, and thought a few of them were somewhat appalling. Personally, my favorites were articles on green cleaning, parlor games, and unschooling.

Nothing was actually offensive, but a few of the articles were gross and some of them I found irresponsible (like the one called “Make LED Graffiti” that encourages placing small disk batteries which can be dangerous if ingested by small children in random outdoor locations.) I think the target audience for this book is someone who is old enough to be more or less self-sufficient, but young enough to still enjoy “playing”.

However, while I would say that it would be best to give this book to someone around the age of 12 and that they would almost certainly find something that interests them in here, I can also pretty much guarantee that they will want to skip over sections of this book. Articles range from everything to “Farting Games” to the opening scene of Little Women. (Personal Rating: 7/10)

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Review: I have multiple degrees in engineering and, like most nerds, I think robots are awesome. Unfortunately, building a robot is not something I ever learned to do in my engineering career. However, it’s something I definitely want to do with my kids when they’re older. It’s also something I’m fairly confident I can figure out. This book sounded really promising because a) it’s meant for kids, and PhD or not, I prefer books that are easy to understand and b) there are 20 projects included. It seemed perfect. However, it wasn’t at all what I was expecting.

I was hoping that it would tell me how to build a simple, yet ACTUAL, robot. If you know absolutely nothing about robotics and want a very gentle introduction to the history of robotics and to terms you might need to know, this book would be helpful. However, if you actually want to build a robot, this book alone is not going to get you there. To me it reads more like a middle school text book on an introduction to robotics (though even for that purpose I think it would be better if they used actual images of robots instead of just cartoon drawings).

Overall, the book was just somewhat disappointing. To be fair, the author didn’t actually say there were 20 robot-building projects, but while the projects are generally related to robots, they definitely don’t teach you how to build anything that one would actually call a real robot.

However, on the other hand, they are the sort of projects that someone who was like 12 could do on their own (i.e. making robot “skin”, hypothetical computer programs done on paper, un-powered components that might be interesting in a robot, hooking up a simple dc motor, etc.) or that parents with absolutely no background knowledge in science or engineering could do with their kids.

I will use some of the projects in this book as an introduction to robotics for my kids. However, I will need to search out other sources of information if I want my kids to learn how to build and program robots with controllers that are able to perform simple tasks. (Personal Rating: 7/10)

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Review: I love math. There are also a couple decades between me and middle school. Therefore, I am not the target audience for this book. However, I occasionally watched The Wonder Years growing up and was fascinated by the idea of a book called Math Doesn’t Suck, by Winnie Cooper, who apparently in real life is a brainy girl (like me). I have to say that I thought she did an amazing job on this book. It’s fun, entertaining, relatable, and easy to understand.

The only minor issue I have with this book is who would actually find it helpful. With chapter titles like “You Can Never Have Too Many Shoes”, boys are obviously out. I think girls who already understood math would find this book entertaining, but maybe not super useful if they already understood the concepts. Therefore, that leaves girls (in middle or even high school) who are struggling with math. I think this book would help them. I really do. However, since math has always come pretty easily to me, I can’t say for sure. I think this book would at least help, if not make everything crystal clear.

Before I had kids, when I first started working at a government lab, I was the only female PhD in my building of like 30 people. In my opinion, any book that will encourage girls to pursue science and engineering is relevant, necessary, and awesome. (Personal Rating: 8/10)

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Review: This is not really a parenting book. It is meant for teenagers and teaches the following 7 lessons (in a nutshell): 1. Take responsibility for your life. 2. Have well-defined goals. 3. Prioritize 4. Help others succeed in order to succeed. 5. Be a good listener. 6. Work together. 7. Take care of yourself.

Overall the message is very positive and empowering and while most of what’s said is common sense, I feel like this book would have been useful when I was a teenager. I think by most standards I would already have been considered successful (good grades, lots of friends, stayed out of trouble, got into a good college), but I feel like this book might have helped me have a more positive relationship with members of my family and maybe even to be more outgoing and willing to step outside my comfort zone. The book is written in a friendly, conversational tone and filled with lots of short personal stories and cute quotes and anecdotes. As an adult, I found it enjoyable.

My kids are nowhere close to teenagers at the moment, so while I think it would be a useful book for them to read at some point down the line, I have no idea if a teenager would even read a book like this if it was given to them by a parent. It does have drug and sex (consensual/abuse/rape) references, but I would still be tempted to give this to my kids when they are in 6th or 7th grade, before they are actual teenagers, but still old enough to understand the message. Hopefully at that age they would be more open to parent-recommended reading. (Personal Rating: 8/10)

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