Kathi Q. Builds a Time Machine?
by Jo-Ann Scranton
illustrated by Gabi Moraes
Tielmour Press, 2024
SUMMARY OF KATHI Q. BUILDS A TIME MACHINE?
Kathi Q. loves to build stuff and her latest invention is a time machine. But it turns out she accidentally builds an upside-down machine.
As you can imagine, the world is now topsy turvy and all sorts of weird and wonderful things happen when Kathi goes to school. But when her favourite dinner ends up falling on the ceiling Kathi decides she’s had enough of this silly new world and rejigs her machine so that everything goes back to normal.
Or does it?
There’s a very cute surprise ending that kids will get a kick out of!
OPENING LINES
Kathi loves to create exciting machines! There is nothing she enjoys more than mixing things together to create something new.
WHY I LIKE IT
It’s always great to see girls behaving in not-so-girly ways. Kathi loves to tinker with her tools and use her creative mind and sense of adventure to build all sorts of cool stuff. And when things don’t go quite right, she rolls with it and then goes back to the drawing board. She’s a calm, cool, and collected problem solver. I like that!
The upside-down world is naturally very ridiculous in a very charming way. It’s silly enough that I’m sure young children will find it either funny or intriguing. Maybe both.
I also like the ending. I don’t want to give it away, but it’s a kind of “non-ending” which I love since that kind of ending lends itself so well to discussions.
The illustrations are bright, colourful, expressive and add lots of interest to the story.
I definitely recommend this book for 4 to 7 year olds.
You can get a closer look by visiting YouTube and watching this trailer.
4 STORY EXTENSIONS FOR KATHI Q. BUILDS A TIME MACHINE?
Give your kids a Wonder Box or a Creation Station, whatever you’d like to call it. Fill it full of goodies and let them build their own inventions. You can fill the box with all sorts of “treasures” like buttons, nuts and bolts, straws, paper rolls, crinkle paper, packing bubble sheets, tissue paper, wood, nails, hammers (if your kids are old enough), glue, tape, pipe cleaners, pom poms and more. Really, the sky’s the limit. When my youngest son was in Grade 2 his teacher had a whole back table set up with that kind of stuff (including the wood and hammer!) and he absolutely loved it. He was always making things and proudly bringing them home.
At the back of the book there’s a list of words and corresponding pictures. Challenge your kids to find all the objects in the book.
Make a character web of Kathi. Draw a picture of her in the middle of your paper (be sure to colour her in bright colours), then print descriptive words around her (e.g., smart, sense of humour, happy, imaginative, creative, problem-solver).
Discuss the ending of the book and then either write a sequel or create one orally and on-the-fly where each person in the class contributes a small part to the new story. This is really fun to do sitting in a circle. You could even pass around a dinosaur stuffie for the speakers to hold (this will make more sense once you read the book!) If you don’t have a stuffie you could use a paper bag dinosaur (I have one below!)
Thank you for reading!
Be sure to check out my Kid Lit page for more book reviews.
