by Sandra Nickel ; illustrated by Aimée Sicuro ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 2, 2021
A creditable, earnest biography of a famed woman scientist.
A star-struck girl becomes a renowned astronomer.
From childhood, Vera Rubin loved the stars, noting their movements from her bedroom window. Fascinated by the galaxies’ rotations, she was determined to become a scientist and became the only female astronomy major at Vassar College. Marriage and motherhood didn’t deter her from developing a solid career in teaching and research. Rubin earned her doctorate and, doing painstaking calculations, made major astronomical breakthroughs—that were dismissed at first due to the sexist assumptions of the male scientific community (depicted by Sicuro as almost uniformly White as well). Eventually, her ideas were accepted and respected. Working at the Palomar Observatory, Rubin made her seminal discovery that “dark matter” explains the phenomenon that stars at the edges of galaxies move as quickly as those at the center—and that it makes up most of the universe. This engaging biography will appeal to budding scientists, particularly those with a penchant for sky searching. Some of it may go over some students’ heads, though the author does a good job conveying concepts in a compact, uncomplicated manner. Rubin is White and portrayed as appealing, dedicated, and determined to make her way in a men’s-only world; she shows it’s cool being a highly intelligent, science-loving female. Several Rubin quotes are included, and a lovely Rubin epigraph concludes the book. Numerous delicate illustrations aptly feature dark blue, star-spangled, galactic backgrounds. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 48.6% of actual size.)
A creditable, earnest biography of a famed woman scientist. (author's note, timeline, notes, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 7-10)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3626-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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by Sandra Nickel ; illustrated by Il Sung Na
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by Jason Chin ; illustrated by Jason Chin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2020
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts.
From a Caldecott and Sibert honoree, an invitation to take a mind-expanding journey from the surface of our planet to the furthest reaches of the observable cosmos.
Though Chin’s assumption that we are even capable of understanding the scope of the universe is quixotic at best, he does effectively lead viewers on a journey that captures a sense of its scale. Following the model of Kees Boeke’s classic Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps (1957), he starts with four 8-year-old sky watchers of average height (and different racial presentations). They peer into a telescope and then are comically startled by the sudden arrival of an ostrich that is twice as tall…and then a giraffe that is over twice as tall as that…and going onward and upward, with ellipses at each page turn connecting the stages, past our atmosphere and solar system to the cosmic web of galactic superclusters. As he goes, precisely drawn earthly figures and features in the expansive illustrations give way to ever smaller celestial bodies and finally to glimmering swirls of distant lights against gulfs of deep black before ultimately returning to his starting place. A closing recap adds smaller images and additional details. Accompanying the spare narrative, valuable side notes supply specific lengths or distances and define their units of measure, accurately explain astronomical phenomena, and close with the provocative observation that “the observable universe is centered on us, but we are not in the center of the entire universe.”
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts. (afterword, websites, further reading) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4623-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
by Andrew Young & Paula Young Shelton ; illustrated by Gordon C. James ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 2, 2022
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal.
Before growing up to become a major figure in the civil rights movement, a boy finds a role model.
Buffing up a childhood tale told by her renowned father, Young Shelton describes how young Andrew saw scary men marching in his New Orleans neighborhood (“It sounded like they were yelling ‘Hi, Hitler!’ ”). In response to his questions, his father took him to see a newsreel of Jesse Owens (“a runner who looked like me”) triumphing in the 1936 Olympics. “Racism is a sickness,” his father tells him. “We’ve got to help folks like that.” How? “Well, you can start by just being the best person you can be,” his father replies. “It’s what you do that counts.” In James’ hazy chalk pastels, Andrew joins racially diverse playmates (including a White child with an Irish accent proudly displaying the nickel he got from his aunt as a bribe to stop playing with “those Colored boys”) in tag and other games, playing catch with his dad, sitting in the midst of a cheering crowd in the local theater’s segregated balcony, and finally visualizing himself pelting down a track alongside his new hero—“head up, back straight, eyes focused,” as a thematically repeated line has it, on the finish line. An afterword by Young Shelton explains that she retold this story, told to her many times growing up, drawing from conversations with Young and from her own research; family photos are also included. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal. (illustrator’s note) (Autobiographical picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-545-55465-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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