By the author of a well-regarded adult book on Marie Curie (Grand Obsession, 1989), a well-organized, admirably detailed account that will especially interest young scientists. Lucidly, Pflaum explains the theoretical insights and arduous work that led to two Nobels for Marie (for the discovery of natural radioactivity) and another for Iräne Curie-Joliet and her husband (who first duplicated radioactivity artificially). The description of the close-knit scientific community of the period and its working conditions and place in society is also fascinating; as women, the Curies racked up several firsts not only in science but in education and government. Work took precedence for the Curies, yet Marie was a lifelong patriot of her native Poland and made sure her gifted daughter received favored treatment at the renowned Curie Institute; Pflaum includes enough personal detail to make her subjects human, balancing a basically laudatory depiction with hints of believable stresses and foibles. The many well-chosen b&w photos are beautifully reproduced. For authority, depth of coverage, and readability, a top choice. Includes two simple physics experiments that Marie Curie used as a teacher. Bibliography; index. (Biography. 11+)
Pub Date: March 22, 1993
ISBN: 0-8225-4915-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
Evocative, elegant prose tells the true, first-person story of Samantha’s difficult childhood navigating a learning disability. Sam has dyscalculia, which severely hinders her ability to understand sequential processing. Academic skills affected include math, spelling, and grammar; other inabilities are telling time, understanding how hours pass, counting money, and dialing the phone. As a child, Sam disguises both her inability to function like other children as well as her shame and fear about it. The eventual diagnosis of “learning disabled” is a godsend, but still leaves many challenges. At age 15, Sam publishes a group-project book of her own original poems (Reach for the Moon), and although high school and college are massive challenges, she finishes both. Crippling social anxiety turns out to be caused not just by the learning disability, but also by depression. Medication brings some long-needed relief. Educational and beautifully written, perfectly demonstrating how learning disabilities can coexist with real talent. (Memoir. YA)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-439-33904-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003
This deeply personal and boldly political offering inspires and ignites.
Curator, author, and activist Drew shares her journey as an artist and the lessons she has learned along the way.
Drew uses her own story to show how deeply intertwined activism and the arts can be. Her choices in college were largely overshadowed by financial need, but a paid summer internship at the Studio Museum in Harlem became a formative experience that led her to major in art history. The black artists who got her interested in the field were conspicuously absent in the college curriculum, however, as was faculty support, so she turned her frustration into action by starting her own blog to boost the work of black artists. After college, Drew’s work in several arts organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, only deepened her commitment to making the art world more accessible to people of color and other marginalized groups, such as people with disabilities, and widening the scope of who is welcomed there. Drew narrates deeply personal experiences of frustration, triumph, progress, learning, and sometimes-uncomfortable growth in a conversational tone that draws readers in, showing how her specific lens enabled her to accomplish the work she has done but ultimately inviting readers to add their own contributions, however small, to both art and protest.
This deeply personal and boldly political offering inspires and ignites. (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09518-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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