A brand new book kicks off the SuperQuesters series of STEM adventures for children this week. Conceived by STEM-thusiasts Lisa Moss and Dr Thomas Bernard – a wife and husband team who founded QuestFriendz after the birth of their twin daughters when they realised there weren’t that many books for young children that would encourage a love of STEM learning. Lisa and Thomas (who is a computer scientist) naturally raise their daughters (now 7 years old) with STEM built into their everyday routines but they’re acutely aware of the STEM kills gap in the UK, particularly among women and ethnic minorities.
SuperQuesters is a young fiction adventure series at its heart, with a non-fiction educational twist. Each adventure addresses a specific scientific question (in the first book this is what makes things go up?) and the central characters become their alter ego superheroes, the SuperQuesters, journeying to magical Questland to answer the question for the reader. The reader is invited to help the SuperQuesters complete their ‘quest’ by interreacting with a series of activities (the STEM quests) to arrive at the answer. While completing each overarching ‘quest’ in Questland the reader develops 10-12 different STEM skills such as coding, abstraction, logic, trial and error.
I have created a special activity for SuperQuesters, to sit alongside The Case of The Stolen Sun and inspire some curiosity and wonder:
But what did Dr Jo think about the book?
“I loved it! From the interweaving of STEM skills into an engaging story with likeable characters and appealing illustrations, SuperQuesters: The Case of the Stolen Sun is creative, eye-catching, thought-provoking, interactive and importantly includes diverse representation.
Dr Jo Science
The inclusion of stickers makes it fun and interactive and the inclusion of additional resources encourage further investigations and to dig deeper…and ready to use classroom materials is a useful touch and I can see this appealing especially to the home education community and to after school STEM clubs, as well as those curious children who always want to find out more.
Marking progress through each quest with reward and recognition for completing challenges in the form of stickers is highly motivating and the interactive element increases the engagement and investment in the challenges faced.
The format of the story crucially develops perseverance and resilience, along with problem solving skills – essential for STEM critical thinkers.
Posing questions, the children work together to find things out and answer through investigation and team work.
SuperQuesters are on a mission to get more girls interested in STEM subjects, but the stories and challenges will appeal to all children.
This first story will be followed by more and I can see these characters becoming firm friends as they take your children on exciting adventures.”
Look out for a competition on my social media pages for the chance to win yourself a copy of the book!
SuperQuesters: The Case of the Stolen Sun by STEM experts Dr Thomas Bernard and Lisa Moss (illustrated by Amy Willcox) is published in paperback on 3 May from QuestFriendz. Check out this list of other recommended STEM children’s books from QuestFriendz: British Science Week 2022 10 Brilliant STEM title to grow your mind – QuestFriendz and you can find even more science book ideas in this Dr Jo Science Twitter thread.
#NotGifted #NotSponsored. I did not receive payment for writing this review. All opinions are my own.
