Stickmen's Guide to Engineering by John Farndon - ADVISABLE

Stickmen’s Guide to Engineering  by John Farndon, illustrated by Joe Matthews, 32 pages. NON-FICTION. Hungry Tomato (Lerner), 2019. $28 (library bound).

Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: G

BUYING ADVISORY: EL – ADVISABLE

AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH

Engineers design structures, machines, and materials. Any man-made thing that works has engineering behind it. Readers of this book will be introduced to the work of engineers. They develop things from materials to power sources, build things from items for our homes to huge structures, and construct things from familiar cars to specialized military items. The last pages contain an engineering timeline, a few clever engineering feats, a glossary, and an index. 

Every spread is chock full of illustrations, diagrams, photos, single paragraph sections, and, of course, stick figures. The headings, subheadings, introductory paragraphs, section paragraphs, captions, and diagram labels all use different typefaces or type sizes, making the information appealingly browsable and manageable. Any student wondering what engineering is all about will find lots of fascinating tidbits in this book.

P.K. Foster, MLS, elementary school teacher-librarian