Frankie Sparks, Third Grade Inventor is a new series to get young readers, especially girls, interested in STEM.

Frankie’s teacher announces, ” ‘we are going to research different kinds of animals, because we are going to get a class pet.’ ” (10) Frankie already knows the perfect animal because her Aunt Gina is a rodentologist. Frankie knows the class pet should be a rat. Now Frankie needs to state her case to her class. Ms. Cupid, Frankie’s teacher, insists the entire class go through the research process. This irritates Frankie because she KNOWS she already has the perfect pet and grudgingly does the research.

When Maya, Frankie’s best friend, does not agree with a having rat as the class pet, feelings are hurt. How come everyone else in the class does not agree with Frankie’s knowledge, especially Maya?

Then, Frankie comes up with an obstacle that could rule out having a rat. One of the parameters for the class pet is it must be “able to be alone for the weekend” and rats need/want fresh food daily. Here is where Frankie’s talent as an inventor excels. She invents a food storage system the rat will be able to open on its own so the rat will have fresh food daily over the weekends. Frankie’s first model does not work correctly, but she continues to work on it until it does.

Frankie’s parents and friends help her to see her other classmates’ points-of-view, but it is not easy.

Third grade emotions run the gambit, making this a very believable story.

After the story, there is a short section on the ‘design process’ and “Your Turn to Be the Inventor!”.