I love to find nonfiction picture books about women in science! This lovely new picture book tells the story of Marie Tharp, a cartographer and ocean researcher. She didn’t live that long ago, but she still encountered lots of opposition to her working in science. She managed to carve out a tiny place for herself at the ocean-studies lab at Columbia University and with a colleague came up with the idea of mapping the ocean floor.

Because she was a woman, she wasn’t allowed to actually do the research required to make the map, but she gathered all the data and figured out how to put it into a usable form. In her work, she became convinced that the theory of tectonic plates was accurate and then used her maps to convince her colleagues. What a great role model of a gutsy, persistent scientist!

The book is written in first person, a choice that makes it easy for the reader to identify with Marie Tharp’s passions, patience, and success.

The back matter includes an interesting glossary (interesting! a glossary!) of terms related to Marie Tharp’s work: Pangaea, Ring of Fire, seafloor spreading. There’s also an interesting section titled “Things to Wonder About and Do” which invites young readers to do things like make soundings in a lake, to research deep ocean spots online, and to speculate about the center of the earth.

Raul Colon’s art is beautiful and lovely accompaniment to this biography. This video profiles another book he did using the same materials he used in this book.

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea, by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Raul Coloon. Paula Wiseman Books (Simon & Schuster): 2016.