Today’s blog post is about Leo the Maker Prince: Journeys in 3D Printing by Carla Diana.
Publication Information:
Publisher: Maker Media, Inc.
Publication Year: 2013
ISBN: 9781457183140
Lexile Reading Level: Not available
This narrative and informational book is awesome for any age. The author takes the stage as our narrator, Carla, and describes how she used to be creative as a child but after being misunderstood she gave up her dream to be an artist and became an accountant. One day, while trying to make it home safely during Hurricane Sandy, she runs into this robot named LEO, who fell off of his mail truck and was abandoned. It turns out, LEO isn’t actually a Robot, but instead a 3D Printer. LEO teaches Carla all about 3D printers. How they work, what you can make (ANYTHING!) and what types of 3D printers are out there. LEO prints out anything that Carla can create, and they escape the storm together. In addition, Diana writes a preface at the beginning of the book with more details about the history of 3D Printers and the inspiration behind wanting to write this book.
“LEO was generating amazing heat and precise movements. But to what end? I had no idea. And then, four pools of plastic appeared on the tray. “Sheep feet?!” I exclaimed, as I realized that the black squares matched the bottom view of the sheep I had drawn.” (Diana, 2013).
Using friendly, conversational language, Diana’s cute anecdotal narrative is jam packed with information about 3D Printing. What is unique about this book is the images inside. It’s partially illustrated, but there are also real photographs of 3D printed objects. Shown below is an illustration of LEO 3D printing a sheep that Carla drew. It clearly depicts how a 3D Printer’s arm melts plastic and moves back and forth across the tray to eventually form a 3D shape.
LEO goes on to tell Carla all about his other 3D printer friends who can 3D print jewelry out of metal, or make games out of 3D printed food, like cheese and chocolate (if you can melt it, you can 3D print with it!)
And yes, to the left, are 3D printed chess pieces made of cheese and completely edible after a good game.
Is there anything that could make this book any cooler? Yes, there is. Every image of a 3D printed object in the book is available to be printed at home or ordered from a 3D printing service. All of the designs of every 3D printed object in the book can be found on the book’s website: http://www.leothemakerprince.com/. This book really wants to inspire kids to become makers and create their own designs. The website also has a section where kids can share what they 3D printed and even though they got the designs from the website, each 3D printed object was given some extra creativity in their own way.
My one main criticism of this book is that it’s very long. It would be a fantastic read aloud of broken up into chunks. I’m not sure if some of the “story” bits in the book are needed, per sey. It’s all great, but things could have been simplified a little bit more without taking away from all of the fun in the book. Overall though, this book could be enjoyed from pre-school through middle school. Honestly though, I think it would even capture the attention of high schoolers and adults. 
Hi Shelby
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds like a lot of fun! I loved that it included a website where you could find the designs of the 3D printed objects the book showed. While a relatively new bit of technology, the newness of 3D printing doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it could be seen as an interesting topic to young readers. However, I think both the narrative approach and the use of the website to find the 3D printed designs really bring what could have been a pretty straightforward information text to life. It’s often hard to wrap my mind around the idea that narrative approaches could be used for topics like explaining 3D printing or to a larger extent STEM subjects. It seems 3D printing is a bit of both worlds – art and science. So it makes sense that a book explaining 3D printing would use a hybrid approach to pull readers in. Furthermore, other STEM related books are using narrative nonfiction to gain readers’ interests. As Rebecca A. Hill (2013) explained in her article
STEM teachers can always rely on textbooks, but as most textbooks go, they often lack organizational structure and are quickly outdated, not to mention they are often boring and confusing. (p. 31).
I was never did excel at math or science, but I loved a good story. I wonder if I might have looked at STEM topics differently had the various subject materials been introduced to me with more of a narrative lean than a strict informational one. Hill continues in her article talking about different authors who had combined a narrative style with STEM topics, explaining “narrative nonfiction […] makes for fascinating and intriguing STEM reading” and that under these authors “STEM subjects come to life” (p. 31). She goes on in the same paragraph to explain that the authors use accounts of real lives and events to bring a “contemporary real-life feel.”
Leo the Maker Prince: Journeys in 3D Printing combines both that narrative appeal with information about a new technology. It looks fun and inviting!
Work Cited
Hill, R. A. (February 2012). Narrative nonfiction for STEM. Teacher Librarian, 40(3), 31-35. Retrieved from https://iu.app.box.com/s/9d3bzvn1nffadn50p543kezxqvfq74yw