Welcome to the Izzy Newton and the S.M.A.R.T. Squad Blog Tour!
To celebrate the release of Izzy Newton and the S.M.A.R.T. Squad: Absolute Hero by Valerie Tripp (author of the American Girl book series) on September 8th, blogs across the web are featuring exclusive, original content from Valerie, plus 5 chances to win a SIGNED copy of Izzy Newton!
The characters’ personalities reflect their favorite field of study. Read on to learn how!
Scientific Personalities
By Valerie Tripp
Izzy Newton loves physics, which is the study of matter—what things are made of and how they work—and all forms of energy like light, heat, electricity, force, and motion. So it makes sense that Izzy is energetic, bright, warm, sparky, forceful, and always on-the-go! Physics has to do with how substances interact, and Izzy is good at making things and people and ideas work and pull together. Izzy’s lightning-fast at making connections.
Physics is put to use to solve practical problems, and Izzy is a logical, practical problem solver and quick thinker. Give Izzy a problem, and once she jumps on it, she stays on it. As one of her friends jokes, Izzy reminds her of Newton’s First Law of Physics: she’s fully focused when at rest, and once set in motion, nothing can stop her.
Izzy is the personification of steady, strong energy. She never gives up! She loves ice hockey because starting, stopping, aiming the puck, and flying across the ice all involve physics, in a very sporty way.
Though Izzy is comfortable in her own company, she appreciates the physics of synergy; she is energized by having the S.M.A.R.T. Squad together because she knows that often, the most diverse teams are the best. Pooling different talents and abilities is a good way to solve problems—and mysteries! Every group needs a heart, and Izzy is ours, and her heart is big and loving. Through her love of physics and the way she personifies physics, Izzy shows us that science is not only fascinating and useful. It is also a way to express creativity and even mend relationships. Izzy and physics are optimistic, because they believe in both factual evidence and imagination – and prove that from that combination spring hope, empathy, self-expression, and endless possibilities.
Allie Einstein is our math whiz, but when it comes to kindness, energy, friendship, and activities, her friends say Allie knows only addition and multiplication, never subtraction or division! She comes at the world with her arms flung wide open in welcome, with a ‘the more, the merrier’ attitude in terms of people and friends as well as accessories, hobbies, and projects. Allie is inclusive, exuberant, convivial, and gregarious. She is never down for long, because she is always on to the next great idea. And why not? After all, Allie believes that the universe is abundant. There’s plenty for everyone.
Allie lives math. She ‘adds it all up’, sees patterns, likes codes, puzzles, and designs like Fibonacci’s sequence. Allie is the person you go to for a mnemonic device to help you remember your locker combination. She knows that there may be only one right answer to a math problem, but that there are LOTS of ways to find that answer, and the fun is in how you do it. There are lots of ‘angles’ to work from as your answer takes ‘shape.’ Allie knows ten different ways to do anything on a computer. In fact, it’s as if her brain is a computer!
Allie gets carried away. The downside of her enthusiasm is that she acts impulsively and sometimes rashly. She piles on, bites off more than she can chew, and therefore begins more than she can finish. For example, Allie signs up for far too many clubs and activities. But as Izzy says, If any human being could do it all, it would be Allie! Allie’s ideas, solutions, schemes, and dreams may be overly ambitious, but that is only because she thinks big. Are her ideas and expectations sometimes unrealistic and impractical? Well, yes, but don’t we all benefit by risk-takers’ bravery and the way mathematicians push the boundaries of what we know? Allie has an infinite number of ideas; you can count on it!
Charlie Darwin is our biologist. She is the personification of nature. Charlie is knowledgeable about and protective of all growing things—both animal and vegetable, both wild and cultivated. She is a gifted gardener, and has a gardener’s vigor, patience, and trust in the cycle of growing, flowering, flourishing, and dying. Charlie knows that seeds have to be planted, nurtured, and given time because even though we can’t SEE what’s happening underground, growth is happening.
Charlie loves to be outdoors! To Charlie, there is no such thing as bad weather: all kinds of wind, weather, temperatures and precipitation are necessary, just as bugs and worms, bees and bats all serve a purpose for growing things. Charlie teaches the S.M.A.R.T. Squad girls to be conscious of animals and nature, and to see how nature’s many parts work together in harmony. She spends a lot of time with animals, so she knows the importance of being still and attentive. It is as if she can understand the animals’ language.
She’s as interested and observant of “the human animal” as she is of four-legged ones. And Charlie knows that people are just like animals when it comes to behavior: when someone acts distracted, distant, or angry (or exhibits another behavior change that is inexplicable) there’s a reason that may well be physical – hunger, fatigue, or illness. Therefore, she doesn’t jump to conclusions or storm off when a friend acts cranky. She knows that if she’s patient, maybe she’ll learn why and be able to help. Charlie knows plants and animals are constantly changing and evolving; in Book 1, she cautions Izzy that Marie has evolved, and may now perhaps feel that she is beyond them in maturity and coolness. She has great instincts, intuition, and knowledge of medicine and human body systems. She is healthy, robust, a natural healer and caretaker.
Charlie has a scientist’s power of focused observing and a good doctor’s ability to listen. She models mindfulness, thoughtfulness, self-control, and consideration for others. She looks speakers in the face and reads expressions. More than once in the books it is Charlie who says: I can tell by your expression that . . . or, I can tell by your body language that . . .
Because she loves nature, Charlie walks the walk of being super-ecologically responsible: she rides her bike or skateboard, or walks to school. Her outfits are made of natural fabrics and meant for hard wear out of doors. She collects litter, eats vegetarian, and composts. She knits and finds clever ways to reuse found objects. Charlie is appreciative of wilderness, and so she loves hiking, camping, and climbing rocks and trees. She is good at orienteering, because she has a natural gift for ‘reading’ geography and topography. She can actually tell which direction is north, south, east, or west!
Marie Curie is our chemist, and her personality reflects the somewhat mysterious, often unpredictable, always fascinating science of chemistry. Marie is mercurial in her moods and can even have explosive reactions. She has good chemistry with quirky people when she wants to, and is almost an alchemist when it comes to transforming boring to wow—as she does with her sneakers when she paints them so that they glow in the dark. You never know with Marie; she’s that cool friend who knows what’s fashionable or cool to do before anyone else somehow, and carries off edginess with flair. For example, in keeping with her changeable nature, Marie likes to morph her appearance. She’s daring when it comes to changing her hair color: one day it’s pink, next day it’s green, next day it may be purple. Marie loves fashion and experimenting with her clothes just as much as she loves chemistry experiments. She wears neon and fluorescent colors one day, primary colors the next, then neutrals the next.
Inspired by her love of chemistry, Marie likes to mix things up quite literally. She loves to cook! Stirring different ingredients together to concoct something brand new? That’s elemental fun. Marie’s family background is Vietnamese, and they’re just back from two years in France, so Marie likes to fuse foods from different cultures together.
Marie may be the S.M.A.R.T. Squader who puts an “A” for “Arts” in STEM and makes it STEAM. She is a gifted artist. When the girls put together a scrapbook, it is Marie who illustrates it. She studies ballet, too, and loves the magical transformation of music into movement.
Chemists must be persnickety. Marie drives Allie crazy with her fastidiousness. Not for Marie is the “oh, that’s good enough,” slap-dash effort or the “no one will notice” or the “oh, don’t go to the trouble,” attitude. Marie is a bit of a perfectionist. But her drive for perfection arises from her determination to help her friends solve mysteries; it is NOT a self-serving way to show off, control, or be superior. In any case, Marie mostly imposes her perfectionism upon herself. Though sometimes overdramatic and “emo,” she is not rigid or incapable of appreciating other peoples’ ideas. And if an experiment goes wrong, Marie has the good grace and good humor to try again. Marie has vision and imagination matched with scientific knowledge and the ability and patience to bring her ideas into being. She comes up with brilliant solutions!
Gina Carver is our inventor. She is imaginative, innovative, deft, creative—and a bit eccentric. Gina, a gifted engineer, likes to build and sew and construct tangible solutions to problems. Like all inventors and engineers, Gina is an artist and a visionary. She is going to grow up to be a combination of Alexander Calder, Frank Gehri, Theo Jansen, Rube Goldberg, and Leonardo da Vinci. You’ll notice that there are no women on that list, and that is exactly why Gina is such a wonderful character; she is a model for all the girls out there who like to build. Gina’s constructive ability is not limited to wood. She can build out of paper, cardboard, cloth, acorns and pinecones, or fruit, if need be. She can paint a mural, construct mobiles, carve garden sculptures, design and sew costumes, and assemble handmade gifts thoughtfully suited to cheer up a friend in need. She has a completely original aesthetic. She understands how our physical environment influences our mood. Gina reminds us that beauty can startle. It can come from unexpected sources. Nothing need ever be wasted – especially not good ideas – when combined in creative ways. It is Gina who teams up with Marie in Book 1 to solve the problem of the crowded staircases with a combination of icicle lights, phosphorescent paint, creativity—and chutzpah.
Metaphorically, Gina can build consensus out of a welter of wishes by listening and considering things from her own constructive perspective. And Gina is our craftsperson and recycler, who can create winning and wonderful winged what-nots out of found materials.
Gina is our outlier. She is a hipster who shuns stereotypes of all sorts. She personifies inventiveness by being independent-minded, which means that she is sometimes oppositional and a tad subversive (in the most positive and creative sense.) Like many iconoclasts, she is tolerant of other points of view and is slow to take offense. Gina’s flaw is that she is messy and disorganized. Her room is packed with a wildly eclectic collection of stuff that Gina is sure will be useful in one of her projects or for one of her inventions some day. But if Gina is untidy, it is because she understands that mess is a necessary part of the creative process. Chaos is possibility. Chaos is potential.
Gina has an eidetic memory, which, she explains, will be useful for her in her planned career as a forensic engineer. She can also “see” in three dimensions. Gina shows us the joy of practical service to others as well as the joy of creating objects of beauty and delight, made by your own hands.
*****
Blog Tour Schedule:
September 28th – Multicultural Children’s Book Day Blog
September 29th – Pragmatic Mom
September 30th – Novel Novice
October 1st – Bookhounds
October 2nd – Here Wee Read
Blog Tour Schedule:
September 28th – Multicultural Children’s Book Day Blog
September 29th – Pragmatic Mom
September 30th – Novel Novice
October 1st – Bookhounds
October 2nd – Here Wee Read
When middle school mishaps happen, five friends form the S.M.A.R.T. Squad and use their collective skills and the power of science to bring order to their school.
Science reigns supreme with this squad of young brainiacs. Join Izzy Newton and her friends in the first adventure of this fun new middle-grade fiction series from National Geographic Kids.
A crowded new school and a crazy class schedule is enough to make Izzy feel dizzy. It may be the first day of middle school, but as long as her best friends Allie Einstein and Charlie Darwin are by her side, Izzy knows it’ll all be okay. However, first-day jitters take an icy turn when Izzy’s old pal Marie Curie comes back to town. Instead of a warm welcome, Marie gives her former pal the cold shoulder. The problems pile up when the school’s air-conditioning goes on the fritz and the temperature suddenly drops to near freezing. The adults don’t seem to have a clue how to thaw out the school. Cold temperatures and a frigid friendship? Izzy has had enough of feeling like an absolute zero. She rallies the girls to use their brainpower and science smarts to tackle the school’s chilly mystery … and hopefully to fix a certain frozen friendship along the way. Will the girls succeed and become the heroes of Atom Middle School?
Part of the creative team behind the American Girl series, Valerie Tripp has written many of the American Girl books about Felicity, Josefina, Samantha, Kit, Molly, and Maryellen. She also wrote American Girl’s Welliewisher and Hopscotch Hill School books. Tripp has also written numerous levled readers, songs, stories, skills book pages, poems, and plays for educational publishers and is the editorial director of the Boys Camp series. She is a frequent speaker at schools and libraries.
Geneva Bowers is a self-taught illustrator who lives in the North Carolina mountains. Her drawing career started at age seven, when she wanted to draw horses better than her sister. Bowers works mostly digitally, using a vivid palette and simple shapes to create interesting images that reflect whimsy with a touch of realism. She has illustrated several webcomics, books, and book covers and is a 2018 Hugo award winner.
SIGNED copy of Izzy Newton GIVEAWAY
- One (1) winner will receive a finished copy of Izzy Newton and the S.M.A.R.T. Squad: Absolute Hero SIGNED by Valerie Tripp
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BEST #OWNVOICES CHILDREN’S BOOKS: My Favorite Diversity Books for Kids Ages 1-12 is a book that I created to highlight books written by authors who share the same marginalized identity as the characters in their books.
Oh, so many choices. I guess I would like to visit with Rosalind Franklin who pioneered in understanding DNA. She died too young. I think she would be the most relatable for me.
I would love to meet Jane Goodall.
I’d like to meet Vera Rubin
I would want to met Dian Fossey.
I’d love to meet Jane Goodall.
This book looks great!
I would want to mete Jane Goodall too, she seems like a popular choice!
I don’t know if this counts – but I’d love to have met Marie Curie since she was way ahead of her time!
I would be thrilled to meet Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the only female doctor to write a book in the 19th century. The fact that she was also the first African American woman doctor makes me think she would have many interesting stories to share.
I would of loved to meet Marie Curie.
I would like to meet all the love ladies from the movie hidden figures and madam CJ walker.
I would like to meet Alexander Graham Bell.