Inspirational and informative, Atkins shows how pursuing one’s passion for science, math, or any field considered...
The verse biographies of three pioneering women who made their marks on science.
Atkins here introduces young readers to three women who bucked convention and distinguished themselves in scientific disciplines at times in history when females were expected to engage in domestic pursuits. German-born Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), who defied the then-accepted notion of spontaneous generation and discovered how caterpillars become butterflies, is still considered one of the foremost entomologists of her day; Brit Mary Anning (1799-1847) discovered the first ichthyosaur and was the first person known to make a living selling fossils; and Maria Mitchell (1818-89) discovered a comet in 1847 and went on to become the first woman in the United States to work as an astronomer. Though they were born in different centuries and lands, Atkins adroitly employs spare yet lyric poems to imagine the similar development of these path-breaking white women, whom she imagines taking the leads of their fathers in cultivating their curiosity and having the courage to believe that: “Discoveries are made / by those willing to say, Once we were wrong, / and ask question after question.” Atkins takes the license verse grants to “fill in what disappeared” from what remains of her subjects’ childhoods, creating captivating fictionalized portraits.
Inspirational and informative, Atkins shows how pursuing one’s passion for science, math, or any field considered nontraditional is worth the risk. (author’s note, bibliographic essay, bibliography) (Verse historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6565-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
An impressive sequel.
Boy and fox follow separate paths in postwar rebuilding.
A year after Peter finds refuge with former soldier Vola, he prepares to leave to return to his childhood home. He plans to join the Junior Water Warriors, young people repurposing the machines and structures of war to reclaim reservoirs and rivers poisoned in the conflict, and then to set out on his own to live apart from others. At 13, Peter is competent and self-contained. Vola marvels at the construction of the floor of the cabin he’s built on her land, but the losses he’s sustained have left a mark. He imposes a penance on himself, reimagining the story of rescuing the orphaned kit Pax as one in which he follows his father’s counsel to kill the animal before he could form a connection. He thinks of his heart as having a stone inside it. Pax, meanwhile, has fathered three kits who claim his attention and devotion. Alternating chapters from the fox’s point of view demonstrate Pax’s care for his family—his mate, Bristle; her brother; and the three kits. Pax becomes especially attached to his daughter, who accompanies him on a journey that intersects with Peter’s and allows Peter to not only redeem his past, but imagine a future. This is a deftly nuanced look at the fragility and strength of the human heart. All the human characters read as White. Illustrations not seen.
An impressive sequel. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-293034-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
Middle school worries and social issues skillfully woven into a moving, hopeful, STEM-related tale.
Following the precise coordinates of geocaching doesn’t yield the treasure Kirby Zagonski Jr. seeks: his missing father.
Geeky eighth-grader Kirby can’t understand why his mother won’t call his dad after their generous landlady dies and they’re evicted for nonpayment of rent. Though his parents have been divorced for several years and his father, a wealthy developer, has been unreliable, Kirby is sure he could help. Instead he and his mother move to the Community Hospitality Center, a place “for the poor. The unfortunate. The homeless.” Suddenly A-student Kirby doesn’t have a quiet place to do his schoolwork or even a working pencil. They share a “family room” with a mother and young son fleeing abuse. Trying to hide this from his best friends, Gianna and Ruby, is a struggle, especially as they spend after-school hours together. The girls help him look for the geocaches visited by “Senior Searcher,” a geocacher Kirby is sure is his father. There are ordinary eighth-grade complications in this contemporary friendship tale, too; Gianna just might be a girlfriend, and there’s a dance coming up. Kirby’s first-person voice is authentic, his friends believable, and the adults both sometimes helpful and sometimes unthinkingly cruel. The setting is the largely white state of Vermont, but the circumstances could be anywhere.
Middle school worries and social issues skillfully woven into a moving, hopeful, STEM-related tale. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68119-548-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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