Spin the Golden Lightbulb by Jackie Yeager is the first book in a new elementary series called The Crimson Five.
Every year, eighth graders all over the country compete in the Piedmont Challenge in order to win a golden lightbulb and earn a place at PIPS, The Piedmont Inventor’s Prep School. Kia Krumpet is determined to be one of only five winners chosen from her state. And when she learns that just winning a golden lightbulb may not be enough to secure her place at PIPS, she is even more determined than before.
Kia, along with the four other winners, must compete at Camp Piedmont in a challenge that will test all of their ingenuity, brains, strength and heart. Does Kia have what it takes to make it to Nationals? Or will her insecurities cost her big time?
I picked this one as the last book for my 4-6 grade STEM book club. What’s more STEM-y than inventions and coming up with your own ideas.
One of the things I really liked about this book was that it encourages teamwork and thinking outside the box. Each of our Crimson Five have character flaws to overcome and you can see their transformation by the end of the book.
This book is futuristic in a realistic way and really gets you thinking about where the world is going… where it could go. Spin the Golden Lightbulb could be a really great book for getting kids thinking about STEM.
I’m not exactly sure what STEM project I will do with this one though. It could be anything really. I could even put out of bin of random stuff and let the kids go nuts with their own creativity. I’d really like to borrow a VR set because that would be so fun for the last meeting, but we’ll see.
A fun book and one that would work for 4th-6th graders easily. This one gets a very high 4 stars from me.
That’s all for now!
-M-