CATAWAMPUS!

In this simple concept book, eager kitties scramble to design and build a wind-driven robot.

Confronted with a table full of craft supplies, the “twitchy team” of furballs scrambles to gather cardboard boxes, cones, tubes, and wheels and then assemble the “motley mix of materials” into a working robot. In the lively cartoon illustrations, Harney’s cute, big-eyed kittens dangle various items, some of which are outlined in red and labeled “square,” “rectangle,” “circle,” or “triangle,” and then try to fit them together in various ways. Their first effort results in a jumbled, nonfunctional “CATawampus,” but a bit of practical reconstruction that adds rollers to the bottom and a triangular sail on the top leads to a zooming “robot rumpus.” It all culminates in a mighty “Crash!” that leaves furry students and bits of bot scattered hither and yon. “But does it matter? NO! These creators are ready to…turn robot into rocket!” In an afterword that seems to be addressed as much to slightly older readers as the “out-of-the-box” teachers to whom this outing is dedicated, the author explains the differences between two- and three-dimensional shapes; among suggestions for follow-up activities, she also provides instructions for a potato battery—a useful but somewhat random inclusion.

A vision of STEM education as a free-wheeling rumpus.