Nikki Tesla and the Traitors of the Lost Spark (Elements of Genius #3): Guest review

 This review was written by teacher Elizabeth Cook.

Written by Jess Keating

Illustrated by Lissy Marlin

Scholastic

978-1-338614763

288 pp.

Ages 8-12

July 2020

If I told you this book was about an elite team of individuals who travelled the world to defeat evil, you might imagine a team of expertly-trained adults with many weapons at their disposal. You would be wrong. This book is about a group of seven kids from the Genius Academy.  All seven students had been sent to the Genius Academy because of their unbridled talents and who, along with Nikki’s pet ferret Pickles, take on secret missions to save the world from relentless villains.

The protagonist and newest recruit is Nikki Tesla, a fabulous inventor with a scientific brain. She joined the other six academy students a year earlier after she blew up her bedroom with her death ray invention and chose the Genius Academy over prison.  The rest of the team includes: Bert Einstein, a visionary; Adam “Mo” Mozart, a musical prodigy; Mary Shelley who is the literary mind of the group; Charlie Darwin, a biologist specializing in animals; Grace O’Malley, the group's leader and a real people person; and Leo da Vinci, the multi-talented polymath and Nikki’s crush. 

From Nikki Tesla and the Traitors of the Lost Spark by Jess Keating, illus. by Lissy Marlin

At the beginning of this third book in the series, Nikki is enjoying her well-deserved vacation in Costa Rica. She has had a busy and adventure-filled first year at the Genius Academy: travelling the world, flying planes, and fighting evil masterminds. However, her break is short-lived with the arrival of her Genius Academy friends who whisk her off on their next mission: to stop a nasty virus (nicknamed SPARK) from being released and causing devastating consequences to mankind. (Pretty apropos, don’t you think?) Nikki and her Genius Academy friends travel to England to track down V, the villain responsible for SPARK. Nikki and the Genius Academy students must save the world from the SPARK virus while evading the diligent MI6 secret agents who think they are the culprits who have blown up the Tower of London...all in a day’s work for these child prodigies!

What I love about the Elements of Genius series is that, outside of being quirky geniuses, the characters are so relatable. Every time Nikki acts on impulse or regrets what she just said, I can feel the red starting to rise in my own cheeks. She has flaws and is very real, still developing as a character which readers will have witnessed through the three books in the series. We learned a lot about her past in the earlier books, Nikki Tesla and the Ferret-Proof Death Ray (2019) and Nikki Tesla and the Fellowship of the Bling (2020) but this book allows us to get to know a bit more about some of the other Genius Academy students. We also get to meet another child genius, Arthur Conan Doyle, a master of deduction, who doesn’t attend the Academy despite being offered a spot many years ago. Learning more about these characters helps us better understand their motivations and behaviour. It is also interesting to see how the introduction of a new child genius works, or doesn’t work, with an established team who are trying to save the world. 

I am a big fan of Jess Keating’s work. In addition to the Elements of Genius series, she writes excellent nonfiction books about weird animals, inspiring picture books about women in science, YA novels, and graphic novels too. Each of her books is a fun and informative read. Despite my best attempts at internet sleuthing, I can’t determine if a fourth Elements of Genius is already in the works or not, though I sincerely hope it is. These Genius Academy students are excellent role models for our middle grade readers. Each student has their own unique talents in various fields of study. When they work together, they are able to overcome enormous hurdles and just happen to save the world in the process. With its promotion of STEM, problem solving with peers, and self-acceptance, this series has it all.

~ Reviewer Elizabeth Cook is a teacher in the Halton District School Board. She is an avid reader and fan of Canadian literature.