A superbly executed account of women astronauts who achieved greatness despite overwhelming challenges.
A young readers’ adaptation of Grush’s 2023 title for adults, which traces the stories of the first six U.S. women astronauts to journey to space.
This compelling and inspiring account introduces readers to Shannon Lucid, Rhea Seddon, Anna Fisher, Judy Resnik, Sally Ride, and Kathy Sullivan, offering insights into their early dreams of traveling among the stars. Subsequent chapters focus on the individual obstacles that each of the astronauts faced on their career paths, including their first ventures into space. Packed with emotion and heart, the work provides powerful insights into the astronauts’ hopes and ambitions as they broke incredible barriers themselves and paved the way for other women. An account of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, which took the life of seven people, including Resnik and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, provides poignant clarity about the cause of the explosion as well as the findings of the subsequent investigation. The Challenger disaster forever changed the way NASA approached safety and resulted in many new procedures and processes. It also helped NASA leaders finally understand that “courage and perseverance in the most pressure-filled situations are traits that don’t belong to a single gender or race.” This riveting account is an effortless and irresistible read that many young readers will find difficult to set down.
A superbly executed account of women astronauts who achieved greatness despite overwhelming challenges. (note from Grush, timeline, biographical sketches, sources) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781534497047
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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