Pull off amazing track hacks using everyday household items with this do-it-yourself Hot Wheels manual that features STEM facts on every page! Send your Hot Wheels car down elaborate and challenging tracks built from everyday household objects and common Hot Wheels cars, tracks, and accessories with this manual featuring 20 maker projects and easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions. Build one-of-a-kind playscapes like: A bumper car arena using pizza boxes! A tilting track made from paper tubes and string! An amazing scoop jump using poster board and duct tape! This unique manual includes STEM facts explaining the science behind each of the DIY projects, plus sticker pages kids can use to decorate their unique ramps and tracks. Whether you’re a rookie racer or an expert driver, this manual is a must-have for every Hot Wheels fan! 20 HACK-THE-TRACK PROJECTS: Create amazing playscapes that will give your Hot Wheels some serious air, like the Drop 'N' Launch, Rapid-Fire Launcher, Pyramid Jumpers, and more! DOZENS OF STICKERS: Decorate and customize the projects with dozens of stickers included. STEM LEARNING MADE FUN: Kids will be learning as they play thanks to embedded early science and technology concepts. Parents can get more how-to advice for a select number of Hot Hacks on Hot Wheels’ official YouTube Kids channel (youtubekids.com)! Gr 2-5-For Hot Wheels enthusiasts, this guide to track building might be just the resource necessary to "launch" them into innovative uses of their cars and tracks. Each activity includes a comprehensive list of materials, a designation of skill level to complete the task, and illustrated directions in a narrative form. Each activity also includes an "Epic STEM Fact," designed to give more information on a scientific concept that the task demonstrates. Following the well laid-out directions, users will be able to create a variety of ramps, bridges, and tunnels. Many of the activities bring in artistic or building elements and some activities even include music connections. The directions are easy to follow and supported by pictures that will act as a model for the reader. Font size is very small and at times the instructions may be a bit wordy for the target audience. Those epic facts feel more like an add-on than a central focus and several of the facts are too general to have an impact; for example, in the Drop ‘N Launch activity, readers are told "You launched the car! In basic terms, you moved it" followed by a one sentence description of motion. More importantly, even though many of the materials can be found at home, each activity is dependent on a Hot Wheels product, giving this book limited value to a circulating collection. VERDICT Purchase only where Hot Wheels topics are in high demand or for maker spaces that include cars, toys, and tracks.-Louie Lauerα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. Ella Schwartz is the award-winning author of Can You Crack the Code?: A Fascinating History of Ciphers and Cryptography , which won the AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books. She is also the author of MAKE THIS! (National Geographic Kids, 2019), STOLEN SCIENCE (Bloomsbury, 2021), HER NAME WAS MARY KATHARINE (Little Brown Books, 2022), and IS IT OKAY TO PEE IN THE OCEAN? (Bloomsbury, 2022). In addition to writing books, Ella is a cybersecurity warrior interfacing with the US federal government on strategic technology initiatives. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering from Columbia University. She lives in New York with her husband and three sons. Learn more about Ella’s books at www.EllasBooks.com.