Lift, Mix, Fling! Machines Can Do Anything

This clever physics primer engages with the premise that big trucks don’t have a monopoly on the word machine—the term fits anything that leverages force “to make work easier.” Ergo, “A spoon, a knife,/ the wheels on carts,” are as much machines as those that “launch a rocket/ up and away,// or cut and bale/ late-summer hay.” As Schaefer’s economic, rhyming text explains the difference between simple machines (which have “one or two parts”) and their compound counterparts, vignettes by Yang show a highly stylized cast of figures with various skin tones in roles ranging from farmers to construction workers to chefs. But the most striking images are those that, in poster-like graphics, celebrate the awesome power of the machines themselves: a huge round wrecking ball, depicted in chronophotographic style, swings into stack of pink, orange, and yellow bricks, sending the rectangles flying. Back matter offers a brief glossary. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)