Teresa Robeson’s picture book biography, Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom may seem to be a book about a physicisit. And it is!
But it is also a book about a girl born into a society that devalued girls. A book about a democrat born into a society that quashed dissent. A book about an immigrant who was cut off from her family. A book about a woman whose contributions were marginalized.
Wu Chien Shiung was a physicist who helped develop many important principles of modern thinking. Robeson does a good job of translating those tricky concepts into accessible language. But she does something even more remarkable in the pages of this book. While celebrating scientific achievement, she paints Wu Chien Shiung as a complex, many-layered person.
Throughout the book, Wu Chien Shiung is pictured wearing a string of pearls. Don’t miss the endpapers where a string of pearls floats amid physics symbols!
Not surprisingly, this book won the Asian/Pacific American Award for picture books and was an NCTE Orbis Pictus Recommended book.
For another book about an inspiring female in a STEM field, click here.
Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom by Teresa Robeson, illustrated by Rebecca Huang (Sterling: 2020).
