TREEHOUSE CODERS IN SQUIRREL RESCUE

A group of diverse kids plan a squirrel rescue by using their STEAM skills in Evan and Deborah Pacheco’s middle-grade graphic novel debut.

Derin, Zoe, Cody, and Jayahave a love of coding and engineering in common, as well as a very cool treehouse that they share. One day, their plans for a new project are interrupted when they hear a squirrel in distress; the poor creature is stuck under a huge pile of acorns. Leader Derin formulates a plan: They’ll build devices to collect the acorns and free the squirrel, all run by Derin’s software and monitored by Zoe’s drone. The kids work together to build and create, but when they put their plan into action, everything goes haywire (“Well, that didn’t go as planned”). Just when all seems lost, Zoe realizes that even though things didn’t work as intended, the squirrel ended up free from the acorns and safe after all. The story is bookended by an introduction including bios of each kid and detailed instructions on how to create an interactive story at the end of the book. The Pachecos, a mother-son team, introduce a cast of kids with different specialties within the same shared STEAM interests. (The squirrel rescue itself is so brief that these aspects don’t yet play a large role, but the seeds are there for future episodes.) The Pachecos allow Hernandez’s cartoon illustrations to relay some of the story, including a wordless two page spread in which the children are chased by bees, apparently drawn by the sound of their acorn-gathering robot. But some details are unclear: Why did the devices not work? Why were the squirrels trapped under acorns in the first place? These plot holes may not trouble young readers, who will instead take away the message that failure isn’t the end; it’s just the beginning of new possibilities.

A fun STEAM-based adventure.