Goldilocks and the Three Engineers

by Sue Fliess, Petros Bouloubasis (Illustrator)

Overview

These three bears help inventor Goldilocks in this quirky fairy tale.

Goldilocks is an inventor with inventor's block. To clear her mind, she takes a walk. Coincidentally, a very smart Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear also take a walk, and they find a cute little bungalow with almost-right inventions. Can they help make the inventions just right?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807529973
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	04/01/2021
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.75(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Lexile:	AD560L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Sue Fliess is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than fifty children's books including Cicada Symphony, The Earth Gives More, and the Kid Scientist series. Her books have been named to notable lists and translated into multiple languages. Sue lives in Northern Virginia.

Petros Bouloubasis graduated from the Graphic Design Institute of Athens. His work is published and exhibited in Greece, Spain, Japan, Iran, Australia, France, Korea, Belgium and Turkey. He is also the illustrator of Mary Had a Little Lab, Little Red Rhyming Hood, and The Princess and the Petri Dish. He lives in Athens, Greece.

Editorial Reviews

"It's an amusing read-aloud and good for a game of spot-the-screwdriver. A cute, zany retelling."—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2021-02-09
When inventor’s block strikes, Goldilocks leaves her house open to some benevolent intruders.

In this rhyming reversal of the classic English fairy tale, it’s pale, pink-cheeked, straw-blond Goldilocks who owns a home, where her bed, chair, and porridge are all set up the way she likes them. As an inventor, she works in the style of Rube Goldberg—more cartoonish than practical—making “gadgets that could zip your coat / and tie your tennis shoes. / Tools that help you seek and find / whatever you might lose.” Illustrations of the last doodad, for example, show a hat with attached flashlight, magnifying glass, and teeny satellite dish. Bright primary colors, simple shapes, and carefree lines provide a lighthearted silliness well-matched with the rhyme, so that when three passing brown bears walk into Goldilocks’ empty home, there’s no guile involved. “We truly couldn’t help ourselves,” they claim; “we’re three bear engineers!” They add wheels to her chair, honey to her porridge, and new gears to her self-rocking bed. The “innovations” are just caricatures of various everyday devices, but a returning Goldilocks is still delighted to discover them, and she invites the bears back to “make the next big thing.” There’s not much under the surface of this teamwork story (aside from the minor home invasion), but it’s an amusing read-aloud and good for a game of spot-the-screwdriver.

A cute, zany retelling. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews