A child who loves engineering builds machines to help others with their problems.Using pulleys, levers, ramps, and more, Mazie McGear makes lifting heavy objects and even feeding the dog, Doodle, easier for the rest of the family, who are all light-skinned and red-haired. Mazie's brother, Jake, finds the constant engineering irritating, but when Doodle gets stuck on the roof, it's up to Mazie to get him down. Though Mazie's whimsical Rube Goldberg–esque contraptions demonstrate that engineering can be both useful and fun, many readers will find Jake's frustrations with his overbearing sibling reasonable. Mazie's "waker-upper rocket machine," designed to prevent him from sleeping in, is downright "engi-noying," as Jake puts it. His suddenly enthusiastic reaction to Mazie's commandeering his basketball and using a "teeter-lever" to help him sink baskets is unrealistic, and the definitions of engineering-related terms interspersed throughout make the story feel contrived and purposeful. The limited palette, dominated by orange, gray, turquoise, and sepia, and lack of backgrounds in many of the illustrations give the tale a hollow and flat impression even as busy and crowded layouts interrupt the flow and result in the randomly inserted rhymes getting lost in the action. (This book was reviewed digitally.)An accessible but bland and clunky exploration of basic engineering concepts. (glossary of simple machines) (Picture book. 4-8)

Haft (Goodnight Bubbala) introduces budding engineer Mazie McGear, a white-presenting red-haired child who relishes solving problems and inventing fantastical machines to help out at home. In a palette of rust and turquoise, polished stylized illustrations by Holmes (The Eye That Never Sleeps) show Mazie’s thought process: “First I turn on my imagination... Then I draw... Then... I build!” Mazie first rigs up a “food-o-matic” to feed family dog Doodle, who eats “so early every morning.” A pulley assembly makes use of Doodle’s natural interest in shoe-chewing to dispense food from atop the refrigerator. More machines follow, including the “Teeter-Lever,” which shoots basketballs and quells conflict with Mazie’s sibling Jake. When the Teeter-Lever inadvertently results in Doodle being delivered onto the roof, the whole family works together, combining the basic principles of Mazie’s machines to rescue the dog, rendered via a pop-up page. Pulsing with friendly energy, this STEM-starter conveys the sense that engineering is something any child can do. Back matter explains the ideas behind Mazie’s machines. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)