I’ve always loved math and science. When I decided to become a writer, I knew I wanted to share this love with children through my writing. Did I know I would one day have five published picture book biographies of women in STEM and three more on the way? Absolutely not. I feel fortunate I’ve had the opportunity to tell the stories of many unsung women scientists and mathematicians. To this end, I keep an ever-growing, ever-changing list of possible subjects for future biographies.
I wrote
Code Breaker, Spy Hunter: How Elizebeth Friedman Changed the Course of Two World Wars
Yes, this book tells the story of a pioneering physicist, but it’s also an immigration story. Wu Chien Shiung, who was born in China, moved to the United States in order to follow her passion: the study of atoms. Once there, she had to overcome prejudice against an Asian woman in physics. This is an informative and inspiring read.
When Wu Chien Shiung was born in China 100 years ago, girls did not attend school; no one considered them as smart as boys. But her parents felt differently. Naming their daughter "Courageous Hero," they encouraged her love of learning and science. This engaging biography follows Wu Chien Shiung as she battles sexism at home and racism in the United States to become what Newsweek magazine called the "Queen of Physics" for her work on how atoms split. Along the way, she earned the admiration of famous scientists like Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer and became the first woman hired…
Doesn’t everyone have a komodo dragon as a guest of honor at a tea party? Even as a young child, Joan preferred her scaly, slithery, reptile friends. She even brought a crocodile to school one day! Kids will love learning about reptiles along with this real-life woman who championed them.
Back in the days of long skirts and afternoon teas, young Joan Procter entertained the most unusual party guests: slithery and scaly ones, who turned over teacups and crawled past the crumpets... While other girls played with dolls, Joan preferred the company of reptiles. She carried her favorite lizard with her everywhere - she even brought a crocodile to school!
When Joan grew older, she became the Curator of Reptiles at the Natural History Museum. She went on to design the Reptile House at the London Zoo, including a home for the rumored-to-be-vicious komodo dragons. There, just like when she…
Math has been my passion ever since I was a girl. Because of this, I’m always looking for books about mathematicians, especially women. In addition to describing Emmy’s math contributions, this book does more. It gives readers a look into a time when women couldn’t enroll in higher education and often, like Emmy, weren’t always paid for their work.
In this engaging and inspiring biography, a groundbreaking but relatively unknown woman finally gets her due as one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century.
Emmy Noether is not pretty, quiet, good at housework or eager to marry --- all the things a German girl is expected to be in her time. What she is, though, is a genius at math. When she grows up, she finds a way to first study math at a university (by sitting in, not actually enrolling) and then to teach it (by doing so for free). She also manages to do her…
What do you think of when you picture an aerospace engineer? It’s probably some white guy in a white shirt. A native woman certainly doesn’t fit that stereotype, but that didn’t matter to Mary Gold Ross. It’s so rare to see books biographies about people who are Native working in STEM, yet representation matters.
Discover the story of how a math-loving girl blazed a trail for herself and others in this American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award Honor Picture Book, Classified: Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, a biography for children ages 7 – 11
Mary Golda Ross designed classified airplanes and spacecraft as Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's first female engineer. Find out how her passion for math and the Cherokee values she was raised with shaped her life and work.
Cherokee author Traci Sorell and Métis illustrator Natasha Donovan trace Ross's journey from being the only girl in a high school math class…
The early days of flight didn’t end with the Wright Brothers. This is the fascinating story of the first woman to design a working flying machine. Some kids think that if an invention doesn’t work, then it and they are failures. That couldn’t be farther from the truth as this book shows. Reading Emma’s story of inventing an airplane, even though she had no formal engineering training, may be just the inspiration and encouragement children need to try inventing.
NCSS/CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book * NSTA Best STEM Book List
This riveting nonfiction picture book biography explores both the failures and successes of self-taught engineer Emma Lilian Todd as she tackles one of the greatest challenges of the early 1900s: designing an airplane.
Emma Lilian Todd's mind was always soaring--she loved to solve problems. Lilian tinkered and fiddled with all sorts of objects, turning dreams into useful inventions. As a child, she took apart and reassembled clocks to figure out how they worked. As an adult, typing up patents at the U.S. Patent Office, Lilian built the inventions…
In this picture book biography, young readers will learn all about Elizebeth Friedman, a brilliant American code breaker who smashed Nazi spy rings, took down gangsters, and created the CIA's first cryptology unit. Her story came to light when her secret papers were finally declassified in 2015. From thwarting notorious rumrunners with only paper and pencil to counter-spying into the minds and activities of Nazis, Elizebeth held a pivotal role in the early days of US cryptology. No code was too challenging for her to crack, and Elizebeth's work undoubtedly saved thousands of lives.
Extensive back matter includes explanations of codes and ciphers, further information on cryptology, a bibliography, a timeline of Elizebeth's life, plus secret messages for young readers to decode.
I read and write to better understand people. Why do we do what we do, feel what we feel, hide what we hide? Any book that illuminates these questions and their answers draws me in. Reading and writing are ways that I can attempt to walk in someone else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes, expanding my own understanding of the world. Perhaps the books on this list will offer you the same opportunity.
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Then a tornado blows it away. Ava is safe in the basement, but when she emerges, only one corner of her home stands. Rather than crumbling under the loss, she feels a load lifted. Maybe something beyond the familiar is calling to her. Ava seizes the opportunity to find the owner of a suitcase that landed on her lawn during the storm. Meanwhile, Juniper urges her to rebuild, Ava’s employer doesn’t want her to quit, and her ex-husband invites her back into his life. Ava must be courageous if she’s…
"A loving coming-of-age story for women in mid-life. Brava!" -Adriana Trigiani, Author of The Good Left Undone
". . . captures the true meaning of resilience-something so many women strive to know in the depths of their inner-self." -Sister Robbie Pentecost, OSF former Executive Director of the New Opportunity School for Women
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Each day, she goes to the place she's worked for twenty years, then returns home. On Sundays, she has dinner with her daughter, Juniper. It's a little boring, but as Ava nears fifty-five, she deserves a bit of…
