Super Women

“Lawlor paints pow­er­ful por­tray­als of those who over­came bar­ri­ers and refused to be labeled as quit­ters, forc­ing them to find cre­ative ways to suc­ceed in their careers.” (Book­list, starred review)

“Author Lau­rie Lawlor details the route that each woman took to make their incred­i­ble con­tri­bu­tion to science—in drug research, zool­o­gy, research math­e­mat­ics, astron­o­my, archae­ol­o­gy, and car­tog­ra­phy. Quotes from the women, archival pho­tos, and oth­er back­ground infor­ma­tion bring their careers and per­son­al­i­ties to life for read­ers. Back mat­ter includes a glos­sary, source notes, index, and pho­to cred­its. A wel­come addi­tion to biogra­phies of famous sci­en­tists.” (Suzanne Cost­ner, Fairview Review, full review)

“Inspir­ing pro­files of six 20th-cen­tu­ry trail­blaz­ers. Aside from “Shark Lady” Euge­nie Clark and, thanks to atten­tion inspired by recent his­to­ries and a film, NASA “com­put­er” Kather­ine Cole­man John­son, Lawlor’s sub­jects will like­ly be new to young read­ers. All were, as the author puts it, struck by “thun­der­bolts of dis­crim­i­na­tion” for being women and, in the cas­es of Clark (whose moth­er was Japan­ese) and John­son (who was African-Amer­i­can), peo­ple “of col­or.” Nev­er­the­less, they per­se­vered, made impor­tant dis­cov­er­ies in their var­ied fields, and, even­tu­al­ly at least, earned sig­nif­i­cant recog­ni­tion. Pho­tos and direct quotes appear but spar­ing­ly in the nar­ra­tives, but read­ers will come away with some sense of each ground­break­er’s char­ac­ter and pri­vate life to go with con­cise but lucid expla­na­tions of her con­tri­bu­tions. If some of the obsta­cles they faced seem ridicu­lous to con­tem­po­rary readers—in order to use the Mount Wil­son Obser­va­to­ry in the mid-1950s, for instance, “quasar hunter” Eleanor Mar­garet Bur­bidge had to pose as her hus­band’s assis­tant and could not use the din­ing hall or bathroom—even now no one will argue that the play­ing field has lev­eled for women in the sci­ences. A hand­ful of new role mod­els, along with light shed on just who made cer­tain sig­nif­i­cant advances in astron­o­my, archae­ol­o­gy, biol­o­gy, med­i­cine, and plate tec­ton­ics. (bib­li­og­ra­phy) (Col­lec­tive biog­ra­phy, ages 11–15)” (Kirkus Reviews)

“This com­pi­la­tion of short biogra­phies of six pio­neer­ing women sci­en­tists is a wel­come and fas­ci­nat­ing addi­tion to STEM resources. Sev­er­al of these women are less­er known, but some read­ers will rec­og­nize Kather­ine Cole­man John­son, the cen­tral sub­ject of the hit movie Hid­den Fig­ures. All six women over­came great prej­u­dice and bias in sci­en­tif­ic fields such as aero­space, marine biol­o­gy, oceanog­ra­phy, archae­ol­o­gy, astron­o­my, and med­ical research. The biogra­phies are short but thor­ough and illus­trat­ed with black-and-white pho­tographs of the sci­en­tists and their work. … Put this in stu­dents’ hands to inspire and encour­age sci­en­tif­ic pur­suits. VERDICT This book hits the right notes—women, biog­ra­phy, and STEM—and does it excel­lent­ly.” (School Library Jour­nal)