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Grasping Mysteries: Girls who Loved Math

by Jeannine Atkins

CCBC Review:

Atkins profiles seven women whose groundbreaking work drew on their love of and aptitude for math: Caroline Herschel (1750-1848; discovered comets, mapped stars); Florence Nightingale (1820-1910; used math to create charts showing how sanitary practices impacted outcomes for patients during Crimean war, changing medicine); Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854-1923; math major at Girton, one of first British colleges for women; electrical engineer and inventor); Marie Tharp (1920-2006; mapped the ocean floor); Katherine Johnson (1918-2020; NASA “computer”/mathematician who did critical work on Apollo and other programs); Edna Lee Paisano (1948-2014; statistician with U.S. census bureau who used her understanding of Native peoples as a member of the Nez Perce nation to change bureau practices in order to encourage Native people’s participation in the census); and Vera Rubin (1928-2016; astronomer who discovered evidence for existence of dark matter in the universe). The individual poems are wonderfully crafted; collectively they give sense of each women’s life and work while also making thematic connections to one another, and other groundbreaking women. Johnson is African American, Paisano Nez Perce, the others are white (Rubin Jewish). A fine companion to her previous volume Finding Wonders, about women in science, this inspired work concludes with notes and a brief description of her research into each woman. ©2021 Cooperative Children’s Book Center

CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 10 and older
Age Range: Grades 3-5 (Ages 8-10) Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13) Grades 9-12 (Age 14 and older)
Formats: Biography, Autobiography and Memoir Poetry Substantial Narrative Non-Fiction
Subjects: 18th Century 19th Century 20th Century 21st Century African Americans Biography First/Native Nations Girls and Women Jewish People Math and Mathematicians Nez Perce People Science and Scientists
Diversity subjects: Black/African Indigenous Jewish

Publishers: Atheneum, Simon & Schuster
Publish Year: 2020
Pages: 305
ISBN: 9781534460683
CCBC Location: Non-Fiction, 811 Atkins

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