Reading Grade Level: 3rd-5th Grade
Awards/honors: Golden Kite Honor Award *Cook Prize Honor Award
A Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of 2018
An Amelia Bloomer List Selection 2019
A National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Children’s Book Council (CBC) Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students 12
A National Science Teachers Association (NCTA) Best STEM Book
A National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
Orbis Pictus Recommended Book CCBC Choices 2019
A Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People Selection 2019
2019 Mathical Award Winner, grades K-2
A BOOKLINKS Lasting Connections Pick
An Evanston Public Library Best Books for Kids

I need to make my son, who just finished getting a degree in mathematics secondary education, read this. I think that if he could take 10 minutes out of the first day and read it to the teens it would set the tone for the year. It's a wonderful book for any reader, really. And I love all the notes in the back, including the illustrator's admission that she's not good in math and how she solved her dilemma.

"... she cherished how math could make sense of the world. Math, with its clear and simple laws. Math, with its strong sense of order."

And from Germain herself: "The human spirit requires more resources inside when outside it has less." I've learned to expand on that truth: the more challenged the human spirit, the more resources it develops.

Just a surprisingly wonderful story, that happens to be a true biography. ( )

The refrain throughout the book is that nothing stopped Sophie Germain from becoming a celebrated mathematician. The story begins in Paris, France during the French Revolution. While there was chaos and anarchy in the streets, a young girl named Sophie was interested only in math. Her parents were very concerned about this obsession because during that time period women were ridiculed and scorned for being smart and ambitious. They tried to stop her by taking away her candles, bedroom fire, and warm clothes so she would have to stay in bed and not work on math all night. However, Sophie continued to work at night anyway and when her parents found her asleep next to a frozen inkpot they decided to indulge her obsession with math, assuming she would be unsuccessful in becoming a mathematician. She continued to study the masters in math and to work on her own math. When she was nineteen years old, she began to send in homework to the university under a male name. This continued until the professor, a world-famous scholar of math, discovered she was not a male. However, word began to circulate about Sophie’s prowess in math and she began to have a full social life, with so many people wanting a chance to meet such a smart female. However, she still couldn’t work as a mathematician because there were no males willing to work with her. Once again, nothing stopped Sophie and she entered a contest sponsored by the Academy of Sciences to try to find a mathematical formula that could predict how vibrations would affect buildings. It took her six years and multiple rejections to find the correct mathematical formula and win the prize.
This book is recommended for children aged six to nine years old and I would recommend it for that age level, as well. It told about Sophie’s life and accomplishments in the face of adversity in a straightforward way that keeps the reader from becoming confused regarding timelines. The illustrations add to the book rather than distract. My favorite section is the part of the book where Sophie spends night and day trying to figure out the formula for vibrations and the illustrations surround the text and depict her not just working on the formula but asleep at her desk and looking like she is pondering something she is reading. It is an aspiring tale in the face of much adversity.

This book is about a mathematician during the French Revolution named Sophie. She loved math and worked hard on mathmatical information. She saw in the newspaper that people were looking for a formula to account for the vibrations of bridges and worked hard to create a formula. Men did not respect women's knowledge and no one would listen to her. This is a good book for 2nd or 3rd graders. This book could pair well with a lesson on determination and hard work/over coming the odds.

Beautiful and delightful. It is a joy to read these kinds of well created and thoughtful biographies to my children. ( )