Jeannine Atkins

These prose poems give us a glimpse into the lives of three young girls who challenged their times and made amazing contributions to science. Growing up in Germany in the 1600s, superstitions make it difficult for Maria Merian to study natural creatures such as caterpillars, with locals believing they come from mud (not eggs) and that "even a good girl may turn / into a witch . . ."

Mary Anning is raised in England in the 1800s and learns to uncover small fossils from her father. But what show more happens when she finds the imprint of a huge "sea dragon," challenging the idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old and with no mention of animals like this in the Bible? And is spending time searching for fossils worth it when her family is starving?

Maria Mitchell grows up on Nantucket Island in the 1800s. She is financially better off than the first two girls and has a chance to study the stars, but struggles against parts of her Quaker upbringing. And having enough food doesn't prevent people she loves from leaving or dying.

Jeannine Atkins has done an excellent job researching the lives of these three young girls who would one day turn into remarkable scientists. The poetic structure and language keep the material from becoming too heavy-handed or dense, a bonus when dealing with scientific concepts.

The book begins with a quote from Maria Mitchell and I'll use it to end here:

"We especially need imagination in science. It's not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry." ~Maria Mitchell, astronomer show less

First of all, look at this wonderful cover. Three girls, faces hidden, as these unfamous/unknown women would become. The white sketches around the edges represent the science that each studied.

Weirdly, I liked this even though it is written in blank verse. This is the first book I've read like this and it would never be my first choice, but it seems to work here. It might be that using blank verse to tell a science story employs both parts of my brain. I like literature and science and to show more get both at the same time is pretty cool.

The three girls are Maria Sibylla Merian from the late 1600s in Germany; Mary Anning from the early 1800s, in England; and Maria Mitchell from 1800s America. Nice balance of eras and countries, and subjects - creatures, earth and sky.

Maria Sibylla Merian was the Painter's Daughter who studied caterpillars and moths and butterflies. Recognized that caterpillars were born from eggs, and documented the life cycle of insects. With her painting background, she also painted the life cycles. Merian travelled to Suriname with her eldest daughter to study bugs in other countries. Nobody in those days just travelled like that.

Mary Anning was the Carpenter's Daughter who became expert at finding fossils in the rocks along the shore in southern England. Desperately poor, Mary sold her fossils but then was the first to find a full body dinosaur fossil. Uneducated, she never got any respect and just 'found' the fossils, but she knew as much as anybody about the creatures she found. I knew quite a bit about Anning because I read Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. (I highly recommend!)

Maria Mitchell was the Mapmaker's Daughter who loved to study the night sky and discovered a comet. She broke away from her Quaker background eventually, and became a teacher of astronomy at Vassar.

They all had father's who encouraged their daughter's search for knowledge. They all followed their passion for knowledge. They all were remarkable.

Once again, she takes her time sweeping her telescope,
slowly as a painter shifting the tip of her brush,
or a girl scanning stones. Beauty rambles more than it rushes.
There's always more than what's first seen.

This is a sample of the blank verse - not so hard to read. It made me even more impressed with the author and how she managed to tell these three stories in such a unique way, short but thorough. (Each biography is only about 60 pages) show less

Thoroughly researched and intimately imagined, this is a novel in verse about Lise Meitner, the Austrian physicist who discovered nuclear fission, a discovery that was used to create the atomic bomb during WWII. After a 30-year career in Berlin, Lise left under false papers in 1938, making her way to Sweden, and later, Cambridge, England.

Back matter: Author's note, timeline, biographical notes on friends and colleagues, selected bibliography

Quotes

What happens if you try to split the show more invisible?
...
Being almost invisible doesn't keep someone safe. (10)

...somebody has to go first to make things fair. (29)

Science is beautifully built on facts,
but some shift as knowledge grows....
What's hidden may have more power
than what we see. (55)

Someone else can decide how to use what she finds. (66)

She doesn't want to complain.
She was taught that a woman must appear
not to need money, food, or anger,
which can be part of ambition. (70)

It's foolish to try to blend in, to believe
one can swap hiding one's history for safety. (93)

I just wish people wouldn't make up things
and call them fact. (102)

Dictators hate science...
facts get in the way of their lies. (138)

Is there a difference between hate and fear? (171)

There's no point in calling ourselves scientists
if we don't tell the truth. (172)

Now that it seems almost impossible to get out, Lise knows she must. (184)

This land [Sweden] caught her from a fall,
but gratitude is a pulse, not solid ground. (201)

Once one person names something, it can be simple for others to see too. (216)

What use is the past if we don't let it teach us? (252) show less

When Aani, resting underneath her favorite tree - a peaceful spot to which she would withdraw, in order to find peace and quiet, and temporarily escape from the tumult of her crowded home - hears the roar of trucks in the forest, the young girl runs to find her mother, and the other village women. It is from Kalawati, the village elder, that she and the other women learn that men from the city have come to cut down their forest, irrespective of the fact that their community relies upon it show more for survival. Determined not to let them destroy the trees, Aani leaps into action, placing herself between the loggers and her arboreal friend, and inspiring the women to similar action...

An engaging tale that highlights both the importance of the forests for human welfare, and the importance of human activism for forest welfare, Aani and the Tree Huggers is based on a true story which, according to the author's afterword, occurred in the 1970s, and launched the Chipko Andolan (the "Hug the Tree Movement") in India. I appreciated this afterword, although I wish the author had given more historical background, and mentioned the much earlier movement and story - the tale of Amrita Devi and the Bishnois people who sacrificed themselves to save the Khejri trees of India's Jodhpur District in the early 1700s - that inspired these more recent events. I couldn't help but wonder whether Atkins took that earlier story, which does involve a young girl as catalyst, and used it in a more contemporary context, to make the modern Chipko Andolan movement more accessible to young readers. Whatever the case may be, I would recommend reading this title in conjunction with a story about that earlier movement, such as The People Who Hugged the Trees: An Environmental Folk Tale. show less