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
With plenty of thrills, friendship, some humor, intrigue and an easy good-guys/bad-guys escape plot, young readers will find...
Six middle schoolers + mad scientists + Everglades = adventure.
Cat, along with five other children who have suffered head injuries, goes to what is billed as the pre-eminent neurological center in the world, the International Center for Advanced Neurology, located in the Everglades. At first, she receives excellent care, but she soon overhears an ominous conversation that leads to her discovery of the awful truth: The terrible Dr. Ames and his colleague intend to implant the children with the DNA of long-dead scientists, including Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Marie Curie and even Leonardo da Vinci. Worse, they learn that Trent, who has already received a transplant, has virtually become Thomas Edison. Trent not only has Edison’s DNA, he has Edison’s century-old memories and speech patterns. Cat and her friends seize an opportunity to escape, relying on Trent’s technical expertise and “inherited” memory to evade the bad guys. As she outlines in her author’s note, Messner follows good science in her descriptions of head-injury treatment; she also gives teachers opportunities to explore the differences between hereditary and acquired characteristics in her more fictional genetic “science.” Her characterizations are solid and age-appropriate; Trent, as young Thomas Edison still avidly working on alternating currents, supplies some laughs.
With plenty of thrills, friendship, some humor, intrigue and an easy good-guys/bad-guys escape plot, young readers will find lots of fun here. (Science fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8027-2314-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A nail-biting survival tale.
Twelve-year-old Julie supervises an important dive for her father’s scuba-diving business, but she soon learns that when you play against Mother Nature it is for keeps.
During the school year, Julie lives with her mother in Atlanta, but her summers are spent with her father in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Unfortunately, although her mother’s law career is taking off, her father’s dive business is struggling. When a wealthy businessman and his arrogant son, Shane, demand to see the artificial reef her father owns, the money is just too important to turn down. Her father, a diabetic, decides Julie should run the dive, so when the anchor pulls, leaving the three of them lost at sea, it is up to Julie to do what she can to save them all. But sharks, hypothermia, dehydration, and exposure might prove more than she can handle. Inspired by a diving accident the author himself experienced, this is a gritty look at what can happen when everything goes wrong. Julie is arrogant and fearful, but she’s also strong and quick-thinking. Shane likewise evolves during the ordeal, but it is the beautiful, terrible, and dangerous Mother Nature who steals the show. Julie is depicted as white on the cover, and the book seems to adhere to the white default.
A nail-biting survival tale. (Adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30654-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
