"With every failure, I learn something...and learning something is always worth while." Wise words from a Willy Wonka-esque scientist who wants to save the world, with the help from his robot family and the three student scientists, Theresa, Jon & Ashley. Theresa wants to stop hurricanes, one of which caused her mother to drown. Ashley wants to be the best, if only to please her parents and Jon just wants to make bubbles. Together these friends take down evil robot twins and forge a lasting friendship and collaboration that will help the future of the plant. A fun, wild ride focusing on STEM and collaboration. A giant robot spider isn't too shabby either!

What do you get when you mix science with a Willie Wonka Factory type laboratory, well you get Dr. Flax’s amazing laboratory. Inside there is everything you could ever dream of. Flowers and plants galore, doors with mysterious inventions, just the perfect place for a budding scientist to explore. Luckily Theresa, and two other friends from her school have been given just that opportunity when they take first through third place at their school’s science fair. Working with an eccentric scientist can be difficult though, especially when it seems that so many of his inventions are glitching. Can Theresa and her new friends come together and use their unique talents to save Dr. Flax and maybe change the world?
This is such a fun book. I love the idea of showing different areas of science. From the supposedly simplistic study of bubbles to the more complex study of algae that can make food that could save the world. And then highlighting how robots can do so many things and there are so many possibilities for how they could make the world great or destroy it. Science is all in the perspective and some times the most simple thing could turn the whole world around. When you have the right team working with you anything is possible, and this book truly highlights that idea. This is such a fun book for budding scientists. I can’t wait to recommend it.
Thank you so very much to Macmillian Children’s Publishing Group and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

I recieved a free eARC of this book. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Three kids win a school science fair, and the chance to work on their projects with the greatest inventor of current time. Except that there are strange things going on.

This is an enjoyable science fiction book that middle grade readers will enjoy, with a great message of hope and encouragement that yes, even a love of bubbles can help make things better,

The Girl Who Built a Spider is an absolute delight to read. Three smart kids, a slightly mad scientist, robots on the fritz, an evil megalomaniac, what is there not to love? A great adventure centered around the scientific endeavours of three kids and a mad scientist that doesn’t have the science heft of books like Zoey and Sassafras, The Questionners or Frank Einstein. But this book is a great complement to these series, in that it explores important ethical concept related to science. And it’s great that there are two girls into science and just one boy, with the main character being a POC. It seems like this book is meant to be a series; I certainly hope so and eagerly await the next one!