These books are absolutely delightful DIY guides, aimed at kids from 9–13 but potentially exciting for the whole family. So far, we’ve read and loved Grow a Garden!, Build a Robot!, Create a Costume!, and Draw a Comic!, with other titles like Fix a Car!, Survive in the Outdoors!, and Build a Game! on hold for us at the local library. Each book in this series is written and illustrated by different teams, making each book feel fresh if you’re exploring multiple titles over the span of a few weeks. The ones we’ve read all leverage winning characters and comics formatting as scaffolding for high-interest activities, projects, history, knowledge, and celebrations of creative thinking.

As I type this, my 6-year-old is reading the part in Build a Robot! about how batteries are constructed, and is politely but intensely shushing me when I ask what...

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