Meet Jack, an eight-year-old kid who loves dancing, drawing, and doing math! When a glue bottle explodes in the library, Jack has to think on their feet and save the day with some really speedy engineering!
Grab your grownup for these extra resources!
- Our grownup moment on this episode was about the free reource called Instructables. If your kid loves making things, this website is full of step-by-step guides and how-to videos for all kinds of projects.
- Do you want to be on our Ooh Song? Record yourself on a smart phone or computer saying something you like to do, and have your grownup email the audio file to podcasts [at] bklynlibrary [dot] org. Oh, and tell us your name so we can give you a shoutout!
- Read more books about engineering, or check Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty, the book that the Whoa Gizmo found for Jack.
- Want to learn more about the cool projects Zak has worked on? Check out his TEDx Talk about transit stations and light.
- Want to use our podcast episode in your library or classroom? We've created a story time program that you can use!
The Whoa Gizmo (aka our fantastic children's librarians) created a book list about architecture and engineering to go along with this episode! Plus, if you're a teacher or a librarian, we created a story time program that you can use in your own library or classroom, with this episode as starting point.
Episode Transcript
Meet Jack and Zak (it rhymes, we know!)
Rachel You’re listening to Page Flippers Take on the World from Brooklyn Public Library: a podcast where kids save the day by exploring their interests, discovering new books and talking to real live experts! If you can take over the show, you can take on the world!
[Sound of a copy machine running, door opening]
Sheneatha Hey Rachel, what are you doing?
Rachel Oh hey, Sheneatha – I’m just doing some copying and pasting.
Sheneatha Uh-huh ...
Rachel See, the copy machine prints out paper copies … and I put a glue bottle here that squeezes out glue [squirting sound] … so when the copies shoot out of the copy machine, they get coated in glue and then they paste themselves onto that bulletin board! Pretty neat, huh?
Sheneatha Wait a minute, I don’t think that’s what copy and paste is …
Rachel Ta-da!
Sheneatha Well, that’s certainly a creative way to illustrate the concept!
Rachel Thank you!
Sheneatha Do you think you could wrap it up soon? Our Page Flipper meeting is about to start!
Rachel Oh no problem! The machine will stop automatically when it’s out of paper.
Sheneatha Great!
Rachel How should we get to the meeting room this time? Book chute? Tunnel? Secret staircase?
Sheneatha and Rachel Book chute!
Rachel Hey, you all out there … want to come with us? Just close your eyes and ...
[Sliding sound, traveling down the magic book chute]
? Theme Song Lyrics ?
Kid I'm really good at cooking!
Rachel That's so cool. Maybe one day you'd like to work as a chef. Or own a restaurant. Or write cookbooks!
Kid I can draw a really amazing monster.
Kid I'm really good at painting.
Sheneatha Wow! Maybe you'd like to be an illustrator for books. Or work as a computer animator for movies or video games!
Chorus Page Flippers Take on the World! x 4
Sheneatha I can do so many things. I read about the things I dream. I flip pages like a chef flips pancakes. I'm a Page Flipper, I can do anything!
Chorus Page Flippers Take on the World! x 2
[Theme song fades out to sound of kids talking, running around]
Rachel Hi, everyone! Welcome to the Page Flippers Club! For those of you who are here for the first time, I’m Librarain Rachel.
Sheneatha And I’m Librarian Sheneatha! And I hereby call to order this meeting of Page Flippers: kid book lovers who want to be the best readers and the best people they can be! You know what we love to say: we flip pages like a chef flips pancakes.
Rachel That’s right! To start off our Page Flipper meeting, let’s do our Imagination Recitation!
Sheneatha Everybody join in!
[Librarians lead chant, with kid voices echoing the lines]
Want to travel the world? Just flip a page!
Want to save the day? Just flip a page!
The story I make is up to me.
We’ll make our world what we want it to be.
When we meet in this library space, we change it to a magical place!
Sheneatha Now the magic can really start!
[Shaking, tinkling, ringing ... sounds of the Whoa Gizmo appearing]
Melina What is that?
Jack It looks like some crazy magical machine! It's got lots of buttons and levers.
[Whoosh sound]
Kid voices Whoa!
Jack The Woah Gizmo! I remember this from last time!
Sheneatha Exactly, Jack! This is a magical machine that finds the perfect book for you.
Jack Can I pull the lever?
Sheneatha Not yet! First, the Whoa Gizmo has to learn more about the Star Page Flipper – and that’s you today, right Jack?
Jack Yeah!
Rachel I’m so excited. Jack, do you want to introduce yourself?
Jack My name is Jack. I'm eight years old. My pronouns are they, them and their. I live in Brooklyn.
[Whoa Gizmo shakes]
Sheneatha Sounds like the Whoa Gizmo is getting excited. It still needs more information to make its magic...
Rachel We still have to learn about the things that make you go “ooh."
Sheneatha Wait, wait, I have a song about that!
Rachel How could I forget? Take it away, sheneatha!
? Ooh Song Lyrics ?
Sheneatha Tell me the things you like, that make your heart sing! Stuff that makes you happy, your favorite things.
Bowie I'm really good at drawing monsters.
Sheneatha Things you love to do and learn about, things that make you shout! Ooh. Oh. Things that make you go ooh, ooh, ooh.
Colin I like to do technology.
Cleo Something I like to do is run.
Wiley And I really like to do math, and I'm really good at it.
Rachel That was so jazzy. And, shoutout to the Page Flippers on this week’s Ooh Song: Bowie, Colin, Cleo, and Wiley!
Sheneatha And any Page Flipper can be a part of our Ooh Song. We’ll tell you more about how you can do that at the end of our meeting.
Rachel So, Jack, what are some things that make you go “ooh"?
Jack My favorite subject is math. I like to dance, go skateboarding, play basketball, play soccer, write, and draw. I like to read as well.
Sheneatha Whoa, that’s so many cool interests!
Rachel What kind of books do you like to read?
Jack I love to read Diary of Minecraft Zombie. That's my favorite series. I also like The Baby-Sitters Club and the Hilo series and The Secret Garden on 81st Street.
Sheneatha Do you have a dream career, Jack?
Jack Being an engineer and architect and maybe even a mathematician.
[Whoa Gizmo shakes]
Sheneatha Jack, it sounds like the Whoa Gizmo is ready for you! Just pull the lever ...
[Sound of lever being pulled, machine puttering out]
Rachel That’s weird. The Whoa Gizmo must be out of sorts. Try pulling the lever again, Jack!
[Jack tries again, same result]
Jack I think it’s broken.
Rachel Darn! I’ll have to add it to my list of things to fix.
Sheneatha Wait -- Rachel, we’re librarians, right?
Rachel Yeah, but I got my degree in library science, not in fixing Whoa Gizmos ...
Sheneatha I know that, but because we’re librarians, we can find a great book for Jack without the Whoa Gizmo!
Rachel Wait a minute, I’ve got it! Because we’re librarians, we can find a great book for Jack without the Whoa Gizmo!
Sheneatha [Deadpan] That’s genius, Rachel. I can’t believe I didn’t come up with that myself. [Laughs] Seriously, though, I have an idea for a great book. Let me go find it on our shelves.
[Sound of shifting through books]
Sheneatha Got it! Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts.
[Bouncing sound]
Kids voices Book Talk!
Rachel Yes! It’s time for Book Talk!
Sheneatha Meet Rosie Revere, a second-grade kid who loves coming up with creative solutions for every kind of problem.
Need a faster way to put ketchup and mustard on your hotdogs? [Squirting sound] How about a device to keep snakes off of your head? [Hissing sound]
Well, Rosie has the answers! She always comes up with the perfect invention to tackle the problem ... until her great aunt says she wants to fly! [Helicopter sound]
Can Rosie use her smarts and creativity to help her great aunt take to the skies?
Ada How can she do that?
Sheneatha You’ll have to read the book to find out!
Rachel Cool! What do you think, Jack, want to check it out?
Jack Yeah!
[Door opening]
Zak Hey everyone, I hope I’m not interrupting?
Rachel Oh no, not at all! Hi, Zak! Everyone, this is my friend Zak. He’s an engineer!
Ada Like Rosie in the book?
Rachel Exactly. Sheneatha, while you were doing the Book Talk I texted Zak to see if he could join our meeting today and talk to Jack about being an engineer.
Jack Cool! Hi, Zak!
Zak Hey! So you want to be an engineer when you grow up?
Jack Yes! Can you tell me more about what you do?
Zak Sure. So, I'm an engineer, and I work on a lot of different types of buildings and projects. So, I help to design skyscrapers and airports and train stations. And I help, as an engineer who knows a lot about math and science, in order to help them figure out how to make it work, how it can be built, and how it's designed so it's used the right way.
Jack Are you very advanced in math?
Zak [Laughs] I don't know if I'm advanced in math. I think, you know, I had to take some hard courses and some really hard tests and I had to stay up really late studying sometimes in order to be able to pass those tests. But one thing that I think you learn is that, you know, you try to solve problems the easiest way possible. You probably try to do that, too. When someone gives you a riddle or a challenge to do, right, you find the easiest way to do it. So, sometimes the math is hard, but a lot of times you can find a smart way to get around doing hard math, which is good news for anybody who isn't too big a fan of math.
Jack Yeah, my my friend Piper isn't a big fan of math. [Laughter] How do you help the community?
Zak You know, it's a really good question, Jack. The kind of engineering that I do on buildings like train stations and airports are the kinds of buildings that a lot of people go into. You've probably been in train stations and airports, I'm sure. And so I like to think that I contribute to the community by making sure that, you know, the things I design are the right things for the people who are going to use it.
Jack What was the hardest thing about building a subway stop?
Zak Getting the trains to run on time, I think. I you know, one of the things that's really interesting about New York is how complicated things are underground. And I'll bet that, you know, the library probably has some really awesome illustrated books where you can see what's underground. And when you look underground in New York, there's like hardly any any dirt under there anymore. It's sewers and it's phone lines and it's subways and it's tunnels and it's steam lines and basements. And so when you're working on subways, you come up against all kinds of unexpected things.
Jack Whoa. I wonder what it looks like. Does it cost a lot of money to be an engineer?
Zak You know, school can be expensive, but I found that when I got excited about what I did going to college, I got offered to go to a college where I didn't have to pay all that much. And, one of the nice things about engineering is it's a job. And I think that if you're really lucky, you actually get paid to do something that you really love to do.
Jack Is being an engineer more math or creativity, or mixture of the two?
Zak It's definitely a mixture of the two. Especially when you've got a new problem that no one's ever solved. You have to be creative in order to come up with the solution. But even in engineering, even beyond the problem-solving part of it, you get to use your ability to draw. Because when you have an idea in your head, you have to show other people that your idea can work and you have to convince them that it's the right idea. And you usually do that through sketching and drawing.
Jack Yeah. Wow.
Zak Are you good at drawing? Do you like to draw?
Jack Yeah, I draw a lot. I like math a little bit more.
Zak Well, that's okay, too, I think. You know, engineers take a lot of different forms, so whatever you like to do, whether it's math or sketching or both, there's definitely a way for you to use it.
Jack Yeah. Thank you!
Zak Sure, Jack. It was great talking to you today.
Zak Well, I should get back to work …
Sheneatha Wait! Zak, before you leave, can I ask you to take a look at our Whoa Gizmo? It’s not working and we don’t know what the problem is...
Zak Oh, sure!
[Tinkering sounds]
Zak Well, this is easy … there’s some glue in this cog.
Jack Glue?
Rachel Oh, uh, so yeah, uh, there was some glue and there was the copy machine and ha, ha, it wasn’t like there was a tiny gluesplosion earlier today in the library or anything, ha, ha, yeah, NO IDEA how that got there!
Zak No problem. A little warm water should take the glue right off.
Rachel Thanks so much, Zak!
Zak See you guys later!
[Music starts]
Sheneatha Now it’s time for our last segment of the show! Grab a grownup!
? Grab Your Grownup Lyrics ?
Shake your head up and down.
Snap your fingers with us now.
If you can't snap, clap your hands!
Side to side, just do your dance.
Grab your grownup! x 3
Just do your dance and take them by the hand!
Rachel And if your big sister, or your uncle Joe, or your cousin Sue is cooking dinner or something, just turn up the volume on this one!
Sheneatha Here’s our grownup moment for today: it’s an online resource called Instructables! Cool name, huh? Instructables is a free website with cool videos and step-by-step guides for building tons of awesome things. Like a house for bugs [buzzing] or an automatic cat feeder [meow] and even a robot chef! [chop chop]
Rachel Some projects kids can do on their own … and others you’ll have to do with a grownup, like making a robot chef ... because, well, lots of knives.
[Chopping sound]
Sheneatha Grownups, did you know that the book we shared with Jack, Rosie Revere, Engineer, is an actual picture book? You can check out from your local public library. We’ll put links to those resources, plus a list of even more books about engineering on our Page Flipper website. Head to BKLYN Library [dot] org [slash] Page Flippers to learn more.
[Ooh Song instrumental]
Rachel Oh and kids, if you want to join our Ooh Song, ask your grownup to use their smartphone or computer to record you saying something that makes you go “ooh."
Sheneatha Like, “I’m really good at piano” or, “I like eating broccoli!"
Rachel You must be the only person I know who likes broccoli, Sheneatha ...
Jack I like broccoli!
Rachel I stand corrected. Maybe it’s just me.
Sheneatha Right, well – whatever it is you like to do, record yourself and then have your grownup email it to podcasts [at] B K L Y N Library [dot] org.
Rachel That’s it! Page Flippers, see you next time, on our podcast feed … or any time at the library!
[Kids cheering]
Jack Librarian Sheneatha? That Instructables resource sounds really cool.
Sheneatha It is super cool! Why don’t you come upstairs and use one of the library tablets to check out the website?
Jack That would be awesome!
Rachel Anything for our Star Page Flipper.
[Sound of walking up staircase]
Rachel Phew! These stairs get longer every time. I can’t wait to get home and put my feet up.
Sheneatha Me too. I’ve just got to get my craft kits to the bookmobile... It's National Craft Your Art Out Day tomorrow!
Jack Woah, that’s a holiday?
Sheneatha It is now. I made it up, and I told all the kids at the library about it, so they’ll all come in tomorrow ready to craft!
Rachel That reminds me ... I’ve got to check on my copy paste demonstration.
[Door opening, squelching sound]
Jack Whoa!
Rachel Babbling books!
Sheneatha Careful, don’t walk any farther! There’s glue all over the floor!
Rachel When the copy machine ran out of paper, the glue must have continued squirting out of the bottle! Could it be possible that copy machines and glue just don’t mix?
[Paper bags rustling]
Sheneatha My craft kits are safe. But I don't think I can cross that river of glue to get these kits out to the bookmobile.
[Horn honking]
Sheneatha Oh, and that's Sally with the truck!
[Sound of truck backing up, then outer door opening]
Sally Hey, Sheneatha! I’m on a tight schedule. Do you have the craft kits ready to go?
Sheneatha They’re ready ... the only problem is I can’t get them to your truck with all this glue in the way.
Rachel And it’s going to take me a while to clean it all up. I’m so sorry, Sheneatha. I ruined Craft Your Art Out Day!
Jack Wait, maybe there’s another solution to this problem!
Sheneatha Really? What can we do?
Jack Can I use this tablet to look something up?
Rachel Of course.
Jack I think I can find instructions for how to make a catapult from materials we have here...
Sheneatha Why do you need a catapult?
Jack You’ll see! Hm ... do we have popsicle sticks?
Sheneatha Do we have popsicle sticks? Children’s librarians are practically drowning in popsicle sticks! Of course we do!
Jack And tape? And a rubber band?
Rachel Check and check.
Jack Perfect!
[Tape and rubber band sounds]
Sheneatha Wow, look at them go!
Jack Got it! I think we can catapult the craft kits over the river of glue right into the back of Sally’s bookmobile!
Sheneatha Great idea!
Jack One, two, three ...
[Boing sound, landing sound]
Rachel You did it!
Kid voices Yay!
[Theme song starts]
Rachel Once again, our Page Flippers came to the rescue by reading in the right places and asking the right questions!
Sheneatha Page Flippers, there are so many things you’re good at, so many things you can learn, and so many great things you can do!
Rachel and Sheneatha Page Flippers, Unite!
Sheneatha Wait a minute. I think we surprised them. They didn’t say it with us. Let’s say it all together … all the Page Flippers listening out there, I’m looking at you!
Rachel Okay, on the count of three we’ll all say, “Page Flippers Unite!”… one, two, three …
Rachel, Sheneatha, and Jack Page Flippers, Unite!
[Theme song]
Sheneatha Page Flippers take on the World is brought to you by Brooklyn Public Library. It’s produced by Virginia Marshall and hosted by me and Rachel Tiemann. Our script is written by Virginia, Rachel, and me!
Rachel Original music from Ty Frison and melody and lyrics by Sheneatha Frison. Maddie Flythe and Meryl Friedman designed our logo. Page Flippers Take on the World is produced with support from PRX and is made possible (in part) by a Ready To Learn grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
Sheneatha Our team of children’s specialists and library professionals include Jessica Ralli, Rachel Payne, and Fritzi Bodenheimer.
Rachel Sarah Eagan was our program magician for this episode. She created a book list and story time program that librarians and teachers can use in their classrooms.
Sheneatha Check that out on our website: B K L Y N Library [dot] org [slash] page flippers.
Rachel Extra kid lines on this episode were recorded by Ada, Euna Jo, and Melina E. Jack was our Star Page Flipper. And special thanks to Zak Kostura, a real architectural engineer from Brooklyn, New York! He really did help built the Fulton Street subway station. You can watch a TED Talk he did on our website.
Sheneatha See you at the next Page Flipper meeting – or wherever you get your podcasts!