Rubik's Quest: Mission Invent by John Farndon
| Rubik's Quest: Mission Invent by John Farndon | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sam Tyler
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| Summary: Mr Jollypops needs help, as his newest assistant you must compete in a science competition to help him save his toy factory. Rubik's Quest: Mission Invent by John Farndon allows you to choose your own adventure, as long as you get some tricky science questions right. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 48 | Date: July 2014 |
| Publisher: QED Publishing | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9781781715581 | |
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The Rubik Cube is not only a great toy, but also a great brand. Why should Lego have all the fun? To wit Rubik have recently branched out into creating variations of their famous puzzle, but also into other formats including books. Rubik's Quest: Mission Invent by John Farndon is one of a new series of fun puzzle books designed for kids that combine a story with improving your knowledge; in this case, in science. Can science be fun? The answer is yes, but perhaps Mission Invent is not the best example of this.
Anyone of a certain age will remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books that sent you to a different page depending on any decision you may make. Mission Invent takes this idea and strips some of the fun out of it by determining your path by answering science questions. Get the answer right and the story continues, get it wrong and you are sent back to try again. Therefore, the reward for getting the right answer is the continuation of the story. So what happens when the story is the weakest element?
Before that, some positives. For the science mad kid, this book will be great. The questions are not particularly easy, but are achievable with a combination of knowledge and educated guess work. The book does educate in basic physics and maths; whether you get the answer correct or not. There is an explanation after each question explaining why the answer works. An example would be; choose one of the three following bridge types you would use to cross a gap - whatever your answer, you will recieve information why one if better suited than the others. As I said the book is for the science mad kid!
Luckily I know one of these, but I also know that they like quality story and illustrations; here Mission Invent is very flat. The story is very naive and appears to be a series of things happening to you as you try and win a science competition for a toy maker - think The Hunger Games, but with bland racing, rather than killer monkeys. Also the drawing is not of the highest quality, each page is colourful and full of imagery, it just does not look that great all the time.
For the right child, Rubik's Quest: Mission Invent will be a great book, but you will need to know beforehand if that is a child you know. To most kids the flat imagery and highbrow (for those still with smaller brows) content will most likely put them off.
If this book appeals then you might also like to have a look at Science Ideas in 30 Seconds by Dr Mike Goldsmith and Science: Sorted! Evolution, Nature and Stuff by Glenn Murphy.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Rubik's Quest: Mission Invent by John Farndon at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
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