However, the combination of the author's unsubtly rendered (often choppy and to my ears woefully halting) verses (which both thematically and textually have felt rather totally contrived, artificial and as though Andrea Beaty is just and sadly trying way way too hard) and David Roberts's bright but exceedingly over-busy (and caricature-like) illustrations have truly and sadly rubbed me the wrong proverbial way (and furthermore, quite frankly, especially David Roberts' depictions of humans and in particular of Rosie and her family, well sorry, while some readers might indeed consider them cute, entertaning and playful, my own aesthetic conscience feels as though he is actually kind of poking exaggerated fun, almost as though David Roberts wants with his pictorial renderings to promote and even celebrate the attitude and impression that intelligent, that imaginative and innovative people, such as Rosie Revere and some of her nearest and dearest, must by mere necessity also appear as physically strange, with weird clothing, overly coiffed hair styles and the like, thus totally promoting and even enabling the sadly often true universal attiude that if one is intelligent and innovative one must and should physically look weird).Īnd although I would certainly not go so far as not recommending Rosie Revere, Engineer, for me, the book is quite simply too overtly sermonisinng, too much like being hit over the head with a rubber mallet so to speak and therefore just not all that special and successfully coneptualised to be even remotely a pleasurable personal reading experience, both as an older adult and also, truth be told, I would most likely not have all that much appreciated said sermonising messages as a child either (and indeed, if I were to rate Rosie Revere, Engineer according to how much I actually have managed to find lasting pleasure in my reading experience, I would probably be considering just one star for Rosie Revere, Engineer, and my two star rating is definitely rather generous and really only because, Andrea Beaty's rather preachy narrative notwithstanding, I do very much agree with the important messages she presents). Now perhaps if Andrea Beaty's presented poetry had been a trifle less awkward and stumbling (and with that, also not so utterly frustratingly distracting) and if her oh so very much important messages had been less in one's proverbial face and thus not so maddeningly preachy (about being courageous, about not being afraid of making mistakes, about trying again and again if and when disasters do occur, and yes, these are indeed important lessons for EVERYONE), I might have actually enjoyed Rosie Revere, Engineer.

Rosie revere engineer by andrea beaty