Marshmallow reviews Teen Innovators: Nine Young People Engineering a Better World with Creative Inventions by Fred Estes

This week Marshmallow is talking about Teen Innovators: Nine Young People Engineering a Better World with Creative Inventions, written by Fred Estes, illustrated by Kavel Rafferty, and published first in 2022.

Marshmallow’s Quick Take: If you like non-fiction books that are both informative and inspiring, then this is the book for you!

Marshmallow’s Summary (with Spoilers): This book is composed of several parts. It starts off with a warm, welcoming introduction that matches the tone of the rest of the book. Then there are six chapters in total, which are each around twenty to thirty pages long—they are relatively quick to read due to the large font and highly comprehensible writing. In each chapter, the author presents a young protagonist and the problem that they faced and / or wished to resolve. The author describes their process and the innovations and inventions they made, highlighting the experiences of young people in STEM.

Essentially, each chapter is a story about a young person who invented something successful that helped the world. The six stories are “Jack Adraka and His Improved Cancer Test,” “Gitanjali Rao and Tethys, Her Lead Detection Sensor,” “William Kamkwamba and the Windmill,” “Austin Veseliza and the Talking Glove,” “Deepika Kurup and Purifying Water through Sunlight and Science,” and finally “Cristian Arcega, Lorenzo Santillan, Oscar Vasquez, Luis ARanda, and Stinky, Their Champion Robot.”

I cannot choose one that I liked over the other because I loved reading about all of them! However, William Kamkwamba’s windmill struck me as especially remarkable given how limited his resources were and how he taught himself most of what he knew! (Incidentally, William Kamkwamba is 39 years old today, and his life continues to be impressive. You should definitely check out his two TED talks at https://www.ted.com/speakers/william_kamkwamba.)

These stories show that there are people who are driven to do good at such a young age! I also liked how the book ends with an inspiring call to action. The author describes problems in the world, but says that one can always take action to fix them. I hope to be like them one day!

Marshmallow’s Review: I really liked Teen Innovators and I would highly recommend it to any and all readers because it is a fun, fascinating, and fulfilling book!

I read Teen Innovators during a time when I was starting to think about STEM as a career path. I am still not fully decided on a specific path, but this book really shows how STEM can be an extremely powerful force for good. I liked how this book highlighted inventors and innovators who are around the same age as the people who will read the book (most likely!) This is really inspiring.

More specifically I would highly recommend Teen Innovators to all who are worried about the future and feel disappointed in humanity. Even though humans do a lot of bad stuff and there is indeed a lot to worry about, books like this and people like the ones in these true stories show that there is a lot of good in the world, too! 

Marshmallow’s Rating: 100%.