Grasping Mysteries: Girls Who Loved Math
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Learn about seven groundbreaking women in math and science in this gorgeously written biographical novel-in-verse, a companion to the “original and memorable” (Booklist, starred review) Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science. After a childhood spent looking up at the stars, Caroline Herschel was the first woman to discover a comet and to earn a salary for scientific research. Florence Nightingale was a trailblazing nurse whose work reformed hospitals and one of the founders of the field of medical statistics. The first female electrical engineer, Hertha Marks Ayrton registered twenty-six patents for her inventions. Marie Tharp helped create the first map of the entire ocean floor, which helped scientists understand our subaquatic world and suggested how the continents shifted. A mathematical prodigy, Katherine Johnson calculated trajectories and launch windows for many NASA projects including the Apollo 11 mission. Edna Lee Paisano, a citizen of the Nez Perce Nation, was the first Native American to work full time for the Census Bureau, overseeing a large increase in American Indian and Alaskan Native representation. And Vera Rubin studied more than two hundred galaxies and found the first strong evidence for dark matter. Told in vibrant, evocative poems, this stunning novel celebrates seven remarkable women who used math as their key to explore the mysteries of the universe and grew up to do innovative work that changed the world.
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Caroline Herschel: A brief story that follows Caroline as she goes along with her brother to England, where she becomes much more than was ever expected of her at home. One of the many beautiful parts of this story is how she passes along her knowledge and encourages her nephew to a life studying the stars as well. She is certainly not known well enough.
Florence Nightingale: Florence is probably the one that I knew of the most before this story. This may be why hers was one of the shortest. Her profound impact on the future of nursing - who could imagine it not being a female dominated field before now? Her observations have saved hundreds of thousands of lives by now. I do wish this story had been a little longer.
Hertha Marks Ayrton: “Girls need better education than boys.” I thought it was really neat how she picked her name - what a power move. The story feels a little long, but I'm glad that once again it ended with the hope of a new generation of women leading the way for change.
Marie Tharp: I had not thought about the mapping of the bottom of the ocean or the discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge before. This was a truly amazing story about a scientist who even her colleagues didn't want to believe.
Katherine Johnson: I loved how this story really emphasizes Katherine Johnson's genius from the time that she was very young. It also details how many people helped get Katherine along.
Edna Lee Paisano: This one is short, and sweet. It illustrates how something as “simple” as counting can lead to steep changes for your community. I hope the US Census Bureau reads this one!
Vera Rubin: One of the longer stories - it took a long time to get to the meat of her discovery, but, as with many of these, the point is in the journey. Vera faced many setbacks and obstacles in the teachers who didn't believe in her. She pressed on anyways.
Overall, this is a great narrative non-fiction book. It isn't very exciting, but is very inspirational. When I think of an ideal reader for this, I think of Girl Scout Troops, Girls Who Code organizations, and any girl who loves math and science.