Rosie Revere, Engineer

Hardcover, 32 pages

English language

Published Sept. 6, 2013 by Harry N. Abrams.

ISBN:
9781419708459

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3 stars (1 review)

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 mentions her one unfinished goal--to fly--Rosie sets to work building a contraption to make her aunt's dream come true. But when her contraption doesn't fl y but rather hovers for a moment and then crashes, Rosie deems the invention a failure. On the contrary, Aunt Rose inisists that Rosie's contraption was a raging success. You can only truly fail, she explains, if you quit.

2 editions

Perhaps I'm Tired of This Particular Theme

3 stars

This book is okay. The theme isn't inherently terrible, as it basically tells children to not give up on their dreams. However, I think it's more that I'm tired of the constant resilience themes in children's literature, especially when it creates a fictional version of the self-help genre, which I kind of feel like this does.

This is present in the fact that the story doesn't show the titular character, Rosie, seeking help from anyone. She creates a "failure" invention (which she perceives as a failure because her uncle laughs at it, though he says that he loves it), and it doesn't even give her uncle a chance at any point to discuss with her the problem. She just gives up on things and hides them until her great-great aunt comes to stay, mentioning that she'd love to fly one day.

She tries her hand again at inventing something, fails, …