Ten-year-old Saffron Speiser-Green loves science, especially space science, but her experiments are often unfinished and messy. When she sets off her volcano model in the coffee shop where her Mama works, ruining the walls, Mama is fired. Luckily, Mama’s own mother, Saffron’s Gran, asks Mama to tend to her coffee shop in Silicon Valley while she goes on a cruise.
Saffron and both of her moms, Mama and Mimi, therefore head from Iowa to California for this temporary stint. Despite some initial bumps as Saffron adjusts to a new school curriculum and new classmates, she soon falls in love with the STEM-infused locale, and is particularly excited about her school’s upcoming STEM Expo, where she can prove she belongs. The coffee shop is failing, though, and Mimi wants the family to return to Iowa. A class trip to the STEAMology Museum in San Francisco gives Saffron an idea for saving the cafe, however, and she enlists the help of several new friends to make it happen. But Saffron’s commitment to her vision risks alienating her friends, and the whole endeavor is a big gamble in any case. Can Saffron save the shop, convince Mimi to stay in California, and create a worthy project for the STEM Expo?
Author Rie Neal blends in just the right amount of planetary facts to make the book a delight for STEM-minded readers (and might create new ones), but the focus is more on interpersonal relations than on STEM per se, as Saffron navigates new friendships and family dynamics. Neal also nicely incorporates some observations about how school projects may exacerbate socioeconomic injustices, as some students can afford flashy parts and equipment and others cannot.
The fact that Saffron has two moms is incidental, although one minor, elderly character tells her in passing that she always forgets Saffron has two moms and “I don’t think I’ll ever catch up.” It feels like an encounter a child of same-sex parents might actually have, lending realism to the story, but without making the moms’ queerness a focus.
Saffron also wears a bone-anchored hearing aid after an infection damaged the hearing in one ear when she was younger. The fact that she is hard of hearing is not a primary part of the plot, but is woven into the story in ways that feel natural for the character: we see Saffron adjust or turn off her hearing aid at times, or comment when a situation makes it harder for her to hear, for example. Other characters’ dialogue also sometimes includes ellipses to indicate when Saffron hasn’t heard part of what they said; the omissions are never filled in or explained, but simply help the reader better understand how Saffron encounters the world. As a hearing reviewer, I can’t opine on the authenticity here, but I trust Neal, who is a doctor of audiology, to have gotten it right.
Saffron often acts without thinking and has been told by a teacher that she was “all over the place” and “just needed to focus.” This feels like Saffron might have ADHD, although this is never stated explicitly. I am tagging the book as having a neurodivergent character, not to dictate, but so that readers can find the title and decide for themselves.
The story wraps up perhaps a little too neatly, but for those seeking a cheery, STEM-themed, early middle grade tale, it’s a recommended title.
Saffron and her family read as White.
