Finding Wonders

Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science
by Jeannine Atkins (Author)

Booktalk: A novel in verse about three girls in three different time periods who grew up to become groundbreaking scientists.

Maria Merian was sure that caterpillars were not wicked things born from mud, as most people of her time believed. Through careful observation she discovered the truth about metamorphosis and documented her findings in gorgeous paintings of the life cycles of insects.

More than a century later, Mary Anning helped her father collect stone sea creatures from the cliffs in southwest England. To him they were merely a source of income, but to Mary they held a stronger fascination. Intrepid and patient, she eventually discovered fossils that would change people’s vision of the past.

Across the ocean, Maria Mitchell helped her mapmaker father in the whaling village of Nantucket. At night they explored the starry sky through his telescope. Maria longed to discover a new comet–and after years of studying the night sky, she finally did.

Snippet:
Rules:

If people catch you with creeping things or wild herbs,
they’ll think they’re for potions or poisons, Sara warns.

Maria tucks the pastry into a basket. She hates
how growing up means more rules instead of fewer.
She’s supposed to walk slower instead of faster,
look around less instead of more.


March is Women’s History Month

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Copyright © 2017 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Lift Your Light a Little Higher


Lift Your Light a Little Higher: The Story of Stephen Bishop: Slave-Explorer
by Heather Henson (Author) and Bryan Collier (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Grab your lantern and follow the remarkable and world-famous Mammoth Cave explorer–and slave–Stephen Bishop as he guides you through the world’s largest cave system in this remarkable homage to the resilience of human nature.

Welcome to Mammoth Cave. It’s 1840 and my name’s Stephen Bishop. I’ll be your guide, so come with me, by the light of my lantern, into the deepest biggest cave in all of the United States. Down here, beneath the earth, I’m not just a slave. I’m a pioneer. I know the cave’s twists and turns. It taught me to not be afraid of the dark. And watching all these people write their names on the ceiling? Well, it taught me how to read too. Imagine that. A slave, reading. But like I said, down here I’m not just a slave. I’m a guide. I’m a man. And this is my story.

Snippet:

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2017 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.