by Jeannine Atkins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 18, 2022
An admirable tribute to a life that holds some timely lessons.
A collection of poems charts the life of Lise Meitner, a pioneering scientist who survived two world wars.
As a young Jewish girl in 1880s Austria, Meitner longed to study chemistry, but her options were limited due to her gender. After she finally managed to earn a Ph.D. and became a professor in Berlin, she was “both flattered and annoyed” to be compared to Marie Curie; “no one expects every man to be like Pierre Curie.” Deliberate, delicate verse describes well the blistering unfairness of sexist academia and the complications inherent in having mentors who don’t share one’s marginalized identities. Appearances by other European physicists, including Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Meitner’s longtime collaborator Otto Hahn, show these revered minds as generally forthright individuals struggling against the rising tide of fascism. While at first reluctant to leave the German laboratory where she worked for years, Meitner eventually escaped to Sweden in 1938, where she continued her work with Hahn from afar. In 1946 she experienced the bitterness of seeing Hahn accept the Nobel Prize for discovering nuclear fission—without mentioning her central role. More than that, though, the devastation of the atomic bomb and the Holocaust haunted her. She lost trust in her home, and “there can be no science without trust.” Appropriately, the fictionalized biography ends on a decidedly bittersweet note.
An admirable tribute to a life that holds some timely lessons. (author’s note, timeline, biographies, selected bibliography) (Verse biography. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-250-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
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by Kathi Appelt ; illustrated by Jennifer Bricking ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 23, 2013
A rollicking, ripping tall tale with ecological subtext.
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When rogue feral hogs and a greedy developer threaten to wipe out Sugar Man Swamp, two raccoons know it’s time to rouse the legendary Sugar Man.
Mythic Sugar Man has reigned over Sugar Man Swamp for a “gazillion yesterdays.” Raccoons Bingo and J’miah descend from a line of Official Scouts Sugar Man designated to watch over the swamp and alert him in an emergency. Twelve-year-old Chap has also grown up along the swamp, where his mother operates Paradise Pies Café. Like his recently deceased grandfather, Chap cherishes the swamp. When the swamp’s sleazy owner, Sunny Boy Beaucoup, threatens to evict them to convert the swamp into Gator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park, Chap takes his grandfather’s place to preserve what he loves. When Bingo and J’miah discover feral hogs descending on the swamp to pulverize the native sugarcane, they risk Sugar Man’s wrath and wake him. Set in the east Texas bayou, like The Underneath (2008) and Keeper (2010), this playful tale teems with bayou flora, fauna and folklore. In a honeyed dialect, the omnipresent narrator directly engages readers, ricocheting between the hilarious human and critter dramas to a riotous finale.
A rollicking, ripping tall tale with ecological subtext. (art not seen) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: July 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2105-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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by Sara Pennypacker ; illustrated by Jon Klassen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2021
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
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