Nonfiction Picture Book Feature for NF Picture Book Challenge 2020

Hi Math is Everywhere Readers,

I’m so excited for Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge!

But first, if you haven’t entered the GIVEAWAY with Amy B. Mucha, hop over there first and get in on it! She’s giving away a picture book critique and a copy of her book!

I have to admit I’m one of those people who prefers fiction over nonfiction, though I’m not sure why. I love learning, I love reading, why wouldn’t I like both together?

I have a feeling it had to do with boring biographies I was forced to read in grade school, but I don’t want that to hinder me from reading brilliant and beautiful books, so when my friend Roberta Gibson posted about NF Picture Book Challenge, I knew I was in!

I want to challenge myself to read more nonfiction, and with a bit of serendipity, my hold for Teresa Robeson‘s debut picture book Queen of Physics How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom just came up this weekend! So off we go, my first nonfiction picture book review of the year! The first of hopefully many 🙂

This book is amazing right from the start: Rebecca Huang‘s cover features a blissful picture of Wu Chien Shiung wearing a lab coat and pearls.

The book dives right into what will become of Wu Chien Shiung who was born in China where “in those days, girls were not sent to school.” But surprisingly, her parents not only believed girls should go to school but they also had created their own school just for girls. This belief in their children continues throughout the book as Wu Chien Shiung continues to go farther and farther in life with their support and love always with her.

The book continue to take us through her life: through her education, her courageousness to stand up and lead against a repressive government, and her incredibly impressive work in physics.

This book made me so proud and so sad for Wu Chien Shiung. Time after time after time, men came to Wu Chien Shiung to get help proving their theories and every single time, she did it! BUT the scientific community continued to give Nobel Prizes to these men she helped instead of her. Thank goodness for Smithsonian magazine and Newsweek for seeing her for who she was and naming her “The First Lady of Physics Research” and “Queen of Physics” respectively.

I am so glad that today women get more credit for what they do, but also so happy that Wu Chien Shiung got to pursue what she loved with the support of her family no matter what others tried to tell her she couldn’t do.

If you want an inspirational and beautiful book to inspire the children in your life, you’ll definitely want to get a copy of Queen of Physics How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom. Thank you, Teresa, for sharing this woman’s amazing story!

I hope you all get to read a copy of this book and thanks so much for reading.

Sincerely,

Kaitlyn Leann Sanchez