Rosie Revere, Engineer
A teacher’s look at why this book belongs in the The Why-Askers stage.
Why it fits The Why-Askers (for preschoolers whose every page sparks a question)
Rosie's flying machine crashes - and her great-great-aunt cheers, because it flew before it crashed. Failure reframed as data is a gift that lasts a lifetime. Rhyming STEM with real emotional stakes.
What makes it special
Its crash-and-cheer scene — 'it flew before it crashed!' — reframes failure as progress with surgical precision. Roberts' delicate ink-and-watercolor contraptions make engineering look like something done in a good dress. For children growing up performance-anxious, Aunt Rose's lesson is armor.
From the publisher
Rosie may seem quiet during the day, but at night she's a brilliant inventor of gizmos and gadgets who dreams of becoming a great engineer. When her great-great-aunt Rose (Rosie the Riveter) comes for a visit and…
About Andrea Beaty
Andrea Beaty studied biology and computer science at Southern Illinois University and worked in tech support and technical writing for a software company before writing for children. Her Questioneers picture books, illustrated by David Roberts, had 2.5 million copies in print worldwide by 2019.
Beaty has said her years of technical writing were good training for writing for kids.
Also by this author: Iggy Peck, Architect · Ada Twist, Scientist · Sofia Valdez, Future Prez
More from “What If and Why Not”
This book is part of The Best Books for Preschoolers: 30 Teacher Picks (The Why-Askers) in our guide The Best Children’s Books by Age — 120 books chosen by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX. Come see how we build readers →
Nobody paid for this review — not the author, not the publisher — and the store link above earns us nothing. Our only interest is the reader this book fits.