Ellie Ment and the Material Matter
Ellie Ment and the Material Matter is a witty, warmhearted novel about kindness, truth, and science.
In Bertie Stephens’s wonderful mystery novel Ellie Ment and the Material Matter, an aspiring scientist investigates a blaze at her school.
Eleven-year-old Ellie is enthralled by science, through which the world’s inscrutable phenomena can be explained. In her quest to become a scientist, she takes to sneaking out of her home to conduct private experiments. In the midst of these nocturnal excursions, she witnesses her school being consumed by purple flames while a professor and other shadowy adults look on.
This strange encounter presages a series of even stranger events. A science teacher recognizes Ellie’s scientific aptitude and gives her a magical tool to manipulate the elements. And Ellie learns that a covert group is trying to save the environment. Equipped with newfound scientific powers, Ellie and her friends investigate the conflagration at the school, as well as the strange buildup of microplastics in the town’s water supply.
Ellie is a precocious heroine whose courage and dedication to the truth are matched by her single-mindedness. The latter quality often gets in the way of her relationships, though. In secondary scenes, Ellie lashes out her friends, including Michael, who is dedicated to “upcycling” waste into works of art and creative inventions. When Michael bulldozes through Ellie’s room, unaware that the “junk” he’s collecting is integral to Ellie’s experiments, she condemns his lack of scientific understanding as stupidity. That not everyone is smart in the same way does not immediately occur to her. Here and elsewhere, the omniscient narrator pronounces points that Ellie misses:
No matter how angry she was, or how bad Michael’s mistake was, these words would hurt … statements like that can hurt long term, especially when they’re simply untrue, and especially when they come from your best friend. It will be smart of you to remember this.
Accessible descriptions of science and scientific theory, including experiments that can be performed at home, mix into the story too. The periodic table’s elements, and information about how they interact with each other, are introduced. And beyond these factual lessons are lessons on kindness and warmth, delivered in a sharp and witty manner. Indeed, observations about the nature of friendship and communication and examinations of Ellie’s scientific knowledge complement the mystery plotline throughout.
As Ellie learns more about the secret society operating in her town, she begins to come of age. She does a better job of finding her place among her friends, family, and broader community too. With hard work and determination, she and her friends are able to make a difference.
In the involving novel Ellie Ment and the Material Matter, a wise girl explores the strange events occurring in her town.
Reviewed by
Willem Marx
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