Operation Cupcake: How Simple Machines Work

With two adorable mice as their problem-solving adventurers, young readers are introduced to simple machines. Ginger and Mac want to retrieve a cupcake from under a glass cake dome on the kitchen counter before the humans get home and spoil their fun. Complicating this mission are the household cat and dog.

Ginger and Mac’s adventure is told in a cartoon-strip style, well-supported by text written in paragraph style. Important terms are included in text boxes in the body of the book and a one-page glossary at the back of the book.

Also included are illustrated information pages, such as “Six Simple Machines”, which shows and briefly describes an inclined plane, lever, pulley, wheel and axle, screw, and wedge.

Throughout Operation Cupcake: How Simple Machines Work, there are frequent “TRY IT OUT” activities that provide students with hands-on experiences, included instructions and all of the materials needed for the activity.

Complex machines are also discussed and illustrated using many age-appropriate examples, such as scissors, a fishing rod, and a bicycle.

Spoiler alert: Although the success of Operation Cupcake seems uncertain for a while, the book ends with a couple of very satisfied mice lounging contentedly in their mouse hole while contemplating needing a pulley to get them back upright again after celebrating a successful mission.

Operation Cupcake: How Simple Machines Work is an excellent introduction to physics. The cartoon-style presentation of the adventures of Ginger and Mac is a perfect vehicle for drawing very young students into the topic without them realizing they are ‘learning’.

Operation Cupcake: How Simple Machines Work is designed to be read to and shared with very young students and used independently with students in Grades 3, 4, and 5.