Fab book for our home Ed library. We have come back to this a few times to delve more into the topic. Such an easy read and one to not make us feel overwhelmed.

This book is about STEM (Stuart Taylor Elmo Morgan) a young boy whose father is injured while playing soccer and who decided to build a solar-powered vehicle to help his father keep his job.

The idea of the book is positive and I love that it shows diverse characters. The authors are family, a father son duo Naeem K Turner-Bandele and Nathaniel A Turner!

What I didn't like was the story fell short on believability. The book is about a boy who had not been shown to have any special science, technology, engineering and mathematics ability in earlier scenes. Yet this same boy suddenly builds a self driving solar-powered golf cart all by himself in one evening. Just like that!

It would have been great if the authors gave some back story to the whole science, technology, engineering and mathematics premise.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

This is such a cute book filled with colorful illustration. I think it successfully delivered a positive message for STEM-loving children, but it could've been better if the story is more engaging.

Note: This is just a cursory review, I will be returning here to update with my full review and link in the coming week.

I read this book with my STEM-loving 4 1/2 year old. From her perspective, she had a hard time being engaged with the story, she had more questions than enjoyment. I didn't enjoy that the story perpetuated pressure of kids needing to "fix" things for their parents. That is quite a lot of stress, even under the guise of a fictional storybook. My child spent a majority of the story trying to figure out why the grown-ups weren't helping and how did STEM even know how to build the invention.

We were SO excited to read this story, representation of both a multicultural and science intersection is a wonderful thing to see. It just felt like the story under-explained and didn't actually focus on fun components of STEM. It ended up being more about the child feeling guilty that their Dad got injured and the STEM part was more about the child's name than actually exploring STEM in the world around them.

Overall, this is book isn't what we expected. The illustrations are lovely and the diversity is a sight for dreary eyes but the story meat itself was lacking a connection to make it feel "whole".

This is a cute little story about a boy's love for his dad. STEM creates something amazing for his dad, the mailman. Everyone loves it and his dad is so proud of him. A great read for parents and children!

My only concern was the dog that is punched in the story. I fear it will make children think that hurting animals is okay as long as the animal is a mean one.

The Amazing World of STEM is a story about STEM (Stuart Tyson Elmo Morgan) and his family. One day Stem and his parents go to play a soccer game, while playing Mr. Morgan fractures his leg. STEM stays up all night and builds a solar-powered golf cart so Mr. Morgan can keep his job. The next day Mr. Morgan uses the golf cart and shows it around town.

This book was written by father and son, I think it's a nice book in concept but it falls a bit short for me. Based on the title I would assume that the main focus would be on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics but after reading it I noticed that only 2 pages were really focused on STEM making the golf cart. It would've been nice if the focus was more on how he went about planning it or showing more aspects of the STEM area. Most of the book was spent on the smaller detail that at times didn't feel necessary. It just fell a bit short of my expectations.

I gave this book a 3 because there were some redeeming qualities that I really liked. The diversity in this book was great. While Mr. Morgan is riding around the neighborhood on his golf cart we see many people of a multitude of backgrounds. Characters included were Dr. Bishara, Father Gonzales, Reverend Chukwu, Mayor Akbar, and Rabbi Janine. Looking at our main character STEM, I really like him. Children need to be able to see themselves represented in stories we read to them. It's hard enough finding books about science, technology, engineering, and math, let alone finding one that a child can actually relate to. I also thought the illustrations were nice and I like the detail that was in them.

While this wasn't my favorite read I think it's a great start and could be used as an introduction to the STEM field. We need more books about science with a diverse group of characters. I think if the authors were to make a series with the character STEM I'd be interested to see where they take it. Just because I wasn't the biggest fan doesn't mean a child won't like it, they might love it.

I thought that this book was great and it was really inspirational!

The images were great and I loved how proud STEMs dad was too – a delightful story

It is 4 stars from me for this one, highly recommended!

Cute little book with bright, colourful illustrations.
The beginning was really cute and was about how they had some good family bonding, then unfortunately the dad had an injury .
STEM then invented a golf cart that will help his dad continue to do his job, with a broken leg .
Not quite sure the book as a whole worked but I did like the idea behind it.

Admirable Project, But...

This book is written by a father and young son team during our current global crisis, and I have a certain level of respect for the book because I love the idea of a family creating a book together. However, I thought this story lacked on several levels. It's a standard length picture book, and too much time was spent on relatively inconsequential things—like waking up, eating pancakes, and even some of the soccer game—that could have been given over to more of the scientific aspect of this. Using an acronym like STEM in the book's title and as the main character's name’s initials sets up certain expectations that were just not met in the book. I would have loved to have seen more pages with the boy working through the problem so it didn't just come across as if he just miraculously came up with this great idea to help his dad and made it all happen in one night. We truly do want children to be interested in STEM topics, and it would have been nice if this book had focused more on that while still keeping the family-positive message. While I admire this as a family project, the book does not work for me on several levels.

This was such a fun and important read! STEM & his parents played soccer one Saturday morning but due to an injury - STEM is inspired to create something to help his dad with work. The book is filled with diversity and inspiration! Thank you to Netgalley for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Amazing World of STEM
by Naeem Khari Turner-Bandele & Nathaniel A. Turner, JD, MALS
What a positive book, a young family has a great connection. But a tragic break makes the son show the possibility of problem solving. Its a great book for encouraging children to solve problems in new and inventive ways.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book.

This children’s book is aimed at primary grade school age and follows the story of STEM. I found the book to be kind of confusing, I thought it would be about STEM subjects. The relation to his name and STEM is really sort of misleading in my opinion for what the subject will be, and this could impact how people view the book. If for example someone is looking for a book about science for their kid, this may not be the best choice. However this book is still fine and tells a decent story with fine illustrations, I’m not sure about the tag line / title and MC name.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for granting me access to The Amazing World of STEM in exchange for an honest review.

The Amazing World of STEM is a primary grade level illustrated storybook about a boy named STEM (Stewart Tyson Elmo Morgan). STEM is feeling guilty that his dad hurt his leg while playing soccer with STEM, so he invents something to help his dad continue to work while injured.

This is a cute story concept, but I was disappointed that a story focused on a kid named STEM took up half of its length not doing STEM things (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math.) The weekend morning routine and soccer game take up far too much real estate in such a short book that actually does get around to the kid genius tech shenanigans I expected from the title. We're playing soccer with the parents and then just like that our boy protagonist has single-handedly built a solar-powered vehicle overnight in his garage. I don't buy it. I wanted more of the kid inventing or doing other sciency things.

I do appreciate the fact that this book is trying to give kids of the world a young black role model who's into STEM topics, and for that this book deserves praise.