By Danna Staaf
Carolrhoda, 2022
136 pages
9781728415772
Age 11 and older
In the 1830s, Jeanne Villepreux-Power’s groundbreaking work in what we now call the field of marine biology included inventing the precursor of the modern-day aquarium so she could study live animals in captivity, rather than dead specimens. She further refined her invention to observe marine animals in their natural habitats—unheard of at the time. Her research off the coast of Sicily, where the French-born, self-taught scientist lived, focused on argonauts, a type of octopus that travels with a shell. Villepreux-Power proved that argonauts not only create their own shells, but can repair them; she also identified the male of the species for the first time. At a time when the world of science was largely a world of men, many of who didn’t think women had the intelligence or rigor for science, Villepreux-Power shared and sought credit for her work, and when much of her documentation and research was lost in a shipwreck, she set about recreating it. It’s not just Villepreux-Power’s extraordinary character and scientific work that makes this engaging book stand out; it’s also the author’s approach seamlessly integrating our 21st-century understanding of gender and class (noting, for example, that Villeproux-Power was a women of economic privilege once she married), in addition to contrasting scientific practices of the time with modern standards. Even the author’s research and writing methods are discussed up front, rather than solely in an author’s note, in this exemplary work of nonfiction. The lively narrative includes engaging, informative sidebars. ©2022 Cooperative Children’s Book Center