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This is a fantastic non-fiction compilation of stories in verse about seven ground-breaking women mathematicians:
- Caroline Herschel, who discovered a comet and got paid for doing so!
- Hertha Ayrton, a woman electrical engineer and inventor of 26 patents!
- Florence Nightingale, who crunched medical statistics in her campaign to prove how to improve how to treat patients in hospitals and clinics (yes, statistics do matter!).
- Marie Tharp, who co-mapped the ocean's floor. (Wowzer, right?)
- Katherine Johnson, one of NASA's premier women "computers" who calculated launch windows, trajectories and double-checked the computers' math (!!)
- Edna Lee Paisano, who worked for the US Census Bureau and increased representation of Native peoples.
- Vera Rubin, a pioneer in astronomy and discoverer of the first evidence of dark matter.
The excerpts are short but compelling and would make for great in-class reading. They're technically historical fiction, as the author states she had to imagine many of the conversations represented in the book. But all these women faced disappointments and kept on going! It's a message of hope and resilience your students may need to hear.
Teacher's Note: The publisher, Simon & Schuster, offers a free Curriculum Guide, five pages, which includes five (5) pre-reading activities, 12 discussion questions (comprehension questions for during reading), and five (5) extension activities.
