Wonder Women by Sam Maggs

Wonder Women by Sam Maggs is yet another collection of brief biographical sketches of women who deserve to be recognized. Complete with attractive line art drawings by Sophia Foster-Dimino, twenty-five women are each profiled in three to five pages. Some are relatively well-known (e.g., Ada Lovelace, Bessie Coleman), but most will be new to readers and many, like chemist Alice Ball, appear to have been almost purposefully forgotten by experts in their fields. At the end of the book's five main sections (science, medicine, espionage, innovation, and adventure), Maggs includes a paragraph for each of another half dozen women in that area. And an unusual, but welcome, feature is the Q & A that follows with a computer scientist, a cancer researcher, a journalist, engineer, or geophysicist, all women currently practicing in their fields.  That contemporary advice will reinforce interest by girls and illustrate the range of experiences open to them today, not just pioneering accomplishments from history.

Wonder Women will be popular with students; it is informative and easy to browse by skipping from one profile to another. The informal descriptions and appendix (subtitled “How to become a Woman of Wonder”) should spark further interest and lead to more investigation of the listed websites and other sources. Look for Wonder Women and titles like Swaby’s Headstrong, Jahren’s Lab Girl, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s My Own Words, and many more on display at the library!   

When books talk to each other ...

I started reading two new books and was happily surprised to feel as though there was a conversation between them.  The first, What I Told My Daughter by Nina Tassler, is a compilation of essays with mothers reflecting on the messages they would like to or have shared with their daughters.  Often, they point to wisdom that their own mothers imparted. Tassler has compiled essays from a variety of women like singer-song writer Pat Benatar, novelist Ayelet Waldman, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Although there seems to be a preponderance of celebrity and entertainment voices, these women leaders seek to enpower their daughters and are sincere in their views on motherhood, such as when Benatar writes, “when you see that newborn’s face for the first time, ... you are forever changed.... You will never put yourself first again. You will never stop worrying if your child is happy, healthy, scared or loved.”

In the Preface, Tassler raises some important points, especially about whether we are putting too much pressure on our girls, inadvertently encouraging them to turn any feelings of failure inward, against themselves. An important lesson for all: “you can fail without being a failure.”

The second book, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, begins with Jahren describing her close relationship with a parent (her father) whose science lab she adored as a child and whose life certainly influenced her own choices.  Subsequent chapters of this memoir shift back and forth between Jahren’s life story (including working in an often sexist field, battles for funding and efforts to deal with bipolar disorder) and information about plants, the environment and biology.  Lab Girl is a fascinating read.  Jahren is a gifted writer and an award winning scientist whose description of a seed sprouting its first root is more than a metaphor for courage.

Lab Girl received an unusually large number of starred reviews from publications including Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.  We will have a copy in the new library so look for it there!

I see possibilities for both texts across the curriculum.  What I Told My Daughter could be an interesting mother-daughter read for advisory groups – it would certainly spark conversation. Lab Girl could obviously be a choice for independent reading for Science classes, but it has the possibility to be a Junior Theme choice next year, mostly due to the high interest amongst girls in trying to find a mentor related to STEM fields; plus, its style and humor could fit Senior writing classes.

Headstrong by Rachel Swaby

Rachel Swaby’s Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science - and the World is filled with 3 to 5 page summaries about the lives and accomplishments of remarkable women in the fields of medicine, biology and environment, genetics, physics, astronomy, math, and invention.  Swaby purposefully does not include Marie Curie, arguing that she needs no introduction and embodies our stereotypical view of a women scientist. Instead she writes about Curie’s daughter, Irène Juliot-Curie, who also won a Nobel Prize. Profiles primarily feature American and European scientists such as Virginia Apgar, Mary Anning, Rachel Carson, Grace Hopper, Maria Mitchell, and Sally Ride.  I am sad to say that I did not readily recognize many other names which underscores an exciting opportunity to learn from this collection.  Those were frequently the most interesting sections, such as one about Jeanne Villepreux-Power who invented the aquarium.

  

The cover looks as though this is geared to younger readers, but the language is fairly sophisticated and Library Journal is recommending it for smaller academic libraries. To me, it’s the perfect book to pick up and leaf through, to find an interesting person and then decide to use other resources and learn even more. Middle and high school students will find much of interest as they contemplate possible careers and course selections. I love that there are 52 vignettes – one per week for a whole year of investigating and exploring!

I also wanted to add these links (already mentioned elsewhere) about innovation from both men and women: Maria Popova at Brain Pickings created a terrific visual review of 100 Ideas that Changed the Web by Jim Boulton (check out #27 about Hedy Lamarr’s contribution to wi-fi type communication; she is also profiled in Swaby’s Headstrong).  Or look into The Gentleman who made Scholar and be sure to investigate 12 Lesser-known Google Projects that are Absolutely Amazing.