Library Mama

I just counted. Right now, I have seven library books at home waiting to be read, six reviews waiting to be written, and six books on hold. I hope they won’t all come in at once, though the pile at home says that they’ve been coming in faster than I can read them. Swamped in books I’m excited about is a good kind of swamped, right?

The Microscope by Maxine Kumin. Illustrated by Arnold Lobel. I read this book to my son’s class in April, for Poetry Month. I like a funny poem for kids, especially, and this one is funny enough that I memorized for a high school poetry assignment, too. That time, I found it in a Cricket magazine, and though I have about half a bookcase devoted to my lifetime collection of Crickets, I couldn’t find the poem when I went looking for it a couple years ago. This year, I tried Google again, with better results. Now I have the perspective for the name Maxine Kumin to sound familiar. Right – former poet laureate and Pulitzer prize winner for poetry. Not only was the poem published as a picture book in 1984, but my library had it on the shelf, shelved with the biographies. It’s a tiny little thing, maybe 5 by 6 inches, so Teacher A. was kind enough to set up the document projector for me so the class could see the pictures. I’m not sure if this is irony or appropriate for the topic. In any case, we had fun.

The poem itself is a bouncy little thing, gleefully relating the contrast between Anton Leeuwenhoek, Our Hero, absorbed in making his microscopes and the slightly gruesome things he sees in them, and the townsfolk, who would just like him to keep his dry goods store open. The complete text is up on the Web, but here are the closing verses:

Impossible! Most Dutchmen said.
This Anton’s crazy in the head!
We ought to ship him off to Spain!
He says he’s seen a housefly’s brain!
He says the water that we drink
Is full of bugs! He’s mad, we think!
They called him dumkop, which means dope.
That’s how we got the microscope.

The closing notes that Leeuwenhoek didn’t invent the microscope, but built over 200 of them, refining the design and sharing his findings with many other scientists. Lobel’s drawings, while still distinctively his own work, call to mind seventeenth century-style copper engravings and illustrate the poem brilliantly. Read it for the poetry, the science history, or just the humor.

Dignifying Science: Stories about Women Scientists by Jim Ottaviani et al Oh my goodness – a man writing about women’s history! OK, now that we’re over the shock, let’s move on. Jim Ottaviani is a very nice local comic book writer and librarian who focuses on science titles. This one came out after a similar book featuring male scientists. I recently saw him at a panel discussion where he talked about all the research he does for his books, putting in days and years of reading to find the small true details that will bring the story to life. This book features stories about lesser-known women scientists who nonetheless made great contributions to science and technology. Each short story is both interesting and packs in a lot of information about its subject. Each is illustrated by a different female comic book artist – I recognized Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Lea Hernandez (Birds of Prey, Killer Princesses), and Linda Medley (Castle Waiting). Featured scientists include Hedy Lamarr, Lise Meitner, Rosalind Franklin, Barbara McClintock and Birute Galdikas, with prologue and epilogue featuring Marie Sklodovska Curie. These are stories of women passionate and enthusiastic about their fields, even as they are often encouraged to go into different fields, their contributions unrecognized while their male colleagues receive Nobel prizes. Copious end-notes include explanations, sources, and recommended books for further reading. This could be enjoyed by middle elementary children up through adults, though it’s shelved in teen at my library.