Ada Lace Sees Red

Ada Lace Sees Red, by Emily Calandrelli, is a science-minded chapter book for 6 year olds, and its heroine would much rather build a robot than paint a sunset.

What happens

Ada's dad has become her art teacher, which is a lot for both of them.

The first assignment is a self-portrait in a favourite colour. Ada draws what's actually in her head instead. Newton's second law, Einstein's equation, the Pythagorean theorem, a few favourite constellations, and a bit of glitter. It comes back face down with "See me" written on it.

Her friend Nina, meanwhile, gets "You've reinvented pink!"

Then comes the striped sunset. Add a little red to the yellow, then a little more, and work your way up the page. Everybody manages it. Nina manages it twice. Ada's turns to mud every single time, and she cannot work out why, and the harder she tries the muddier it gets.

She misses the deadline. She gets an incomplete in front of the class. And then she slams down her brush and a blob of yellow paint lands right in the middle of Nina's finished painting.

Out in the courtyard, though, George is coming along. George is Ada's robot. Mr Peebles next door helps her swap the axle and the worm gear, she finds the typo in her own code, and soon George can cross the garden and dodge the bins.

So Ada has an idea. Fit George with photoresistors, which read reflected light and turn colours into numbers, attach a paintbrush, and let him do the art homework.

He's rather good at it. And Ada knows exactly what she's done.

It's only when Nina points at two flowers and says one is purple that the real thing surfaces. Ada can't tell purple from blue. Or pink from white. She is colour-blind, and she is certain her artist parents will be horrified.

The science is properly in here rather than sprinkled on top. Torque, gears, why the wheels wouldn't turn by hand, what cones in your eyes do. All of it explained in passing, in the middle of the story.

Two things to mention. The cheating goes on for a good while and nobody catches her, so the conversation about it is one your reader may want to have with you rather than with the book.

And it's American. Mom, color, third grade, a school in San Francisco. Your reader will notice the spellings.

This isn't the first Ada Lace book, though it stands alone fine. She and Nina have already had one investigation together and already helped Mr Peebles get his dog.

What to read next

If that friendship is the part your reader takes to, try the case where Ada and Nina first met. Ada's leg is in a cast, she has just moved across the country, and a neighbour's Yorkshire terrier goes missing.