Max Einstein – World Champions!

James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein's World Champions is a Max Einstein adventure for 8 year olds in which a team of kid geniuses takes on the climate crisis.

What happens

It starts with a bang. Max and Siobhan are sprinting across a melting glacier in Greenland, chased by men in white camouflage on snowmobiles. Max rips the zips out of their backpacks and ties them round their boots for grip. And when they run out of ice? They jump.

(Don't worry, there are parachutes in those backpacks.)

Nobody knows who sent those men. Then we meet Dr Ivanovich, a genius in a mountaintop fortress who rolls two enormous diamonds around in his hand. His rich friends make their money from coal, oil and gas. They call themselves the Fossils, and not because they're old!

Ben has a new plan too. He's brought in Anna Sophia Fiorillo, a teen influencer with purple hair and LOTS of energy, to make Max the face of the Change Makers Institute. Max would honestly rather hide in the loo on the plane. Then Anna announces that Max is speaking to the United Nations in two days.

Max hates public speaking and it's very funny watching her try. Asked for something inspiring to say to the camera, the best she can manage is "This, you know, stinks."

The science is right there in the action. The team splash through Miami Beach streets that have flooded on a sunny day and talk through why the tides keep rising. And Max fixes a taxi's leaky radiator with two eggs. Who knew that was possible?

Not everyone on the team agrees, which is half the fun. Klaus thinks climate change is a hoax and he isn't shy about saying so. Max decides he's her new challenge.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The men chasing Max have rifles and a shot hits the boat, and a helicopter crashes into the sea (its crew end up bobbing about in the water, cross but okay). Dr Ivanovich tells a room full of supporters that Max must be eliminated. The climate stuff is very real too, with floods, melting ice and a feeling that time's running out. A child who already worries about the planet might want to talk it through. If your reader likes to DO something about a worry, though, Max is great company.

What to read next

This is the fourth Max Einstein book and it picks up from the third, so if your reader's new to Max, start with The Genius Experiment. If it's the planet-saving that grabs them, try Frank Einstein and the Bio-Action Gizmo, where a different kid genius takes on a company digging up coal in a nature reserve.