Parker Bell and the Science of Friendship by Cynthia Platt, Rea Zhai
Published by Clarion Books on May 21st 2019
ISBN: 1328973476
Pages: 160
Goodreads

Fifth-grader (?) Parker really wants to win the school Science Triathlon with her BFF Cassie, but she is unhappy that Cassie has invited her coding friend Theo to be part of the team. While I wanted to like this STEM related book with strong female characters, I thought the author tried too hard to include all the pertinent and politically correct topics of the day. The dark grayscale illustrations did not fit well with the plot and depicted characters as younger and more comical than they seemed in the narrative. Reminded me a bit of “Little Lulu” cartoon. In the end, Parker’s Team came in second-place much to her displeasure (I was glad they didn’t get first.) and predictably, Parker misjudged some of her classmates and now has several BFFs. I would choose the similar Ada Lace series of books over this one.

Reviewed by Barb Rehmeyer, Liberty Library, Liberty.