There is something to be said for the obsession with magic wands and flying brooms and all the things that take us out of our boring “muggle” lives and remind us that magic is awesome. But there’s also the problem with retreating into a world that, in the end, only promises to remind us that we are not allowed to enter. We can only observe.
This is a time where observing—TV, YouTube, etc.—is what people do most. And, like magic wands and flying brooms, I have nothing against YouTube or Facebook or screens, in general. But I do have a problem when watching other people do cool things is what people do instead of DOING things. It’s heartbreaking to read about how invention and creativity is at a major low point. People just don’t go out there and make stuff like they used to. Kids, in particular, are less prone to building a treehouse or making a go-cart or mixing dangerous combinations of things in the kitchen and creating a fabulous disaster. Invention is the magic we can do. This will disappear if we instead turn our attention to a screen instead of getting messy by trying our hands at magic.
The Young Inventors Guild trilogy was born of that idea. People need to not merely think outside some box but create things out of boxes and use them to inspire thinking! Kids need to know they are capable of amazing things and that amazing things are not just fantasies to watch on the screen. Knowing we can do magic and feeling the power to do it—that’s what it’s all about.
Eden Unger Bowditch is the author if The Atomic Weight of Secrets, a Victorian-era adventure and mystery that follows five brilliant young inventors who are kidnapped and must learn to work together on their greatest invention yet in order to escape. It's the story of the wonders of science -- and the still greater wonders of friendship -- in the midst of a historical and international mystery.