Just So Stories

Riveted Press

January 2025

ISBN 9781763526037
RRP $12.99

This is not just a fun read, especially for readers growing in their confidence to tackle chapter books, but has so much to offer with regard to topics such as AI, robotics, STEM and Mighty Girls not to mention ethics and intellectual property. Lexie Moon is a dedicated inventor, inspired by her grandfather who has come to live with her family (that intergenerational family aspect is also a big plus!).

She is immensely proud of her latest invention – the “Vocabuliser” – a marvellous device which will help people say tricky words properly. Or that’s the intention. If only she’d realised why there was one tiny wire left lying on her workbench.

When the new machine is stolen by Gizmo Lightfinger, would-be inventor who relies on stealing other folks’ ideas, there is general mayhem as he uses the device on one victim after another, human or animal, robbing them entirely of their words.

It’s up to Lexie, with some help from Granddad, to foil the dastardly burglar. With some quick modifications to a couple of her other inventions, and the assistance of her The Nose-Knows tracking device (which won her runner-up in the previous year’s inventors awards), Lexie thwarts Lightfinger and reduces him to a barking mad fool. Along the way there is a lot of humour as well as action, which will engage readers admirably. Author Melissa Garside has delivered a narrative which provides some layered concepts, with a light (-fingered??) touch that renders them very accessible, including short, snappy chapters. And the occasional illustrations throughout from Lauren Mullinder are a perfect foil for the text. I have to add as well – I love this cover art! There are some bigger publishers [not mentioning any names] who could well take note of the continued excellence of this aspect in books from Riveted Press.

For 25 years in my school libraries I ran activities that encouraged inventing, building, experimenting and engineering (long before there was a “Makerspace” movement) and for the past ten of those, strongly encouraged girls to take part. At one point my Geek Girls group was huge and we were lucky enough to have incursions from STEM Girls Qld as well as Reverse Garbage, as well as opening up the former boys’ only groups to girls, and initiating a co-curricular I called tHinker Club, which was a big hit.

This book will work beautifully in kickstarting many kiddos into thinking along these lines and could be the opening for your class or library to instigate an engineering/inventing group for FUN, not just to tick curriculum boxes. For young readers from around 8 years upwards, it will provide a good stepping-stone into lengthier chapter books. Well done all round! and I’m giving it a 5 🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨 rating.