SPAGHETTI CODE

Supermodel Kloss and co-author Fang cook up a STEM adventure that supports creative coders when their commands get dicey.

Kelly Kent and her pup, Gadget, love “to tinker, code, and build.” When business explodes at her neighbor Mr. Amato’s new restaurant, Kelly offers to “build a spaghetti machine” to help him keep pace with orders. With a determined set of her brow, the young scientist methodically attacks the problem. Observing, experimenting, constructing, and giving her machine commands, Kelly knows “coding is like cooking—she just has to figure out the right steps to get the outcome she wants.” Initial attempts get more twisted than Mr. Amato’s delicious spaghetti, but “line by line, Kelly cleans up her code” and achieves pasta perfection. Jose’s energetic digital illustrations feature classic pasta shapes swirling across pages and artfully incorporate computer commands in a distinctive font, emphasizing foundational logic. Backgrounds in cool blues have an airbrushed look that adds visual texture, while splats of tomato-red sauce throughout suit the food-centric, alliterative storyline. Though the story has a few small bugs (Gadget is an unnecessary though innocuous sidekick), this tale of a focused and determined problem-solver sits well alongside other STEM picture books, including the Questioneers series. Brief backmatter explains the title, a nickname for messy code. Kelly is pale-skinned; Mr. Amato is slightly darker and of Italian descent.

A good pick to stir up interest in programming—and pasta-making.