November 15, 2021
A collection of poems charts the life of Lise Meitner, a pioneering scientist who survived two world wars. As a young Jewish girl in 1880s Austria, Meitner longed to study chemistry, but her options were limited due to her gender. After she finally managed to earn a Ph.D. and became a professor in Berlin, she was "both flattered and annoyed" to be compared to Marie Curie; "no one expects every man to be like Pierre Curie." Deliberate, delicate verse describes well the blistering unfairness of sexist academia and the complications inherent in having mentors who don't share one's marginalized identities. Appearances by other European physicists, including Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Meitner's longtime collaborator Otto Hahn, show these revered minds as generally forthright individuals struggling against the rising tide of fascism. While at first reluctant to leave the German laboratory where she worked for years, Meitner eventually escaped to Sweden in 1938, where she continued her work with Hahn from afar. In 1946 she experienced the bitterness of seeing Hahn accept the Nobel Prize for discovering nuclear fission--without mentioning her central role. More than that, though, the devastation of the atomic bomb and the Holocaust haunted her. She lost trust in her home, and "there can be no science without trust." Appropriately, the fictionalized biography ends on a decidedly bittersweet note. An admirable tribute to a life that holds some timely lessons. (author's note, timeline, biographies, selected bibliography) (Verse biography. 10-14)
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December 15, 2021
Grades 5-8 Written in free verse, this book opens in 1938 with physicist Lise Meitner on a westbound train, hoping that her forged papers will allow her to escape from Germany but aware of the consequences if her Jewish identity is suspected. The next poem begins a chronological account to Meitner's life: her youth in Austria, the struggle to find employment in her field, the difficulties of living in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power, and the satisfaction she found in her work. She earned the respect of her peers, though two Nobel Prizes were awarded to her longtime male colleagues alone, ignoring her contributions to their joint achievements. The author of Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science (2016) and Grasping Mysteries: Girls Who Loved Math (2020), Atkins approaches her newest biographical novel in verse with the same clarity of purpose and ability to express the vision, the courage, and the achievements of a woman aspiring to move science forward, despite resistance and hostility from many within the field. A respectful and very accessible introduction to Meitner.
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Starred review from March 1, 2022
Gr 5 Up-In brief verses that paint vivid pictures, Atkins, the author of Finding Wonders, Grasping Mysteries, and other biographies of famous women, presents the complicated and often tragic life of Lise Meitner, the Austrian physicist who was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission. Born at a time when women were not permitted to study beyond primary grades nor pursue scientific careers, Lise nonetheless persisted, earning a PhD in physics from the University of Vienna and eventually becoming a full professor at the University of Berlin. While her research was widely published and admired, she was forced to relinquish credit for all that she accomplished to the men with whom she worked. Since she was Jewish, her safety and her work became imperiled after Hitler's rise to power, and she and colleagues were forced to flee to safer countries. While she and Otto Hahn searched for a new element on the periodic table, Lise uncovered the secrets of nuclear fission-but Otto alone received the Nobel Prize for the discovery, since Lise was not free to publish her findings. She refused to work on the development of the nuclear bomb, and although she was honored for her accomplishments after the war ended, she struggled with the consequences of her discoveries. Although the text's format does not lend itself to research, the concluding author's note, time line, and brief biographies of Lise's friends and colleagues help ground this compelling story in history. VERDICT With her portrait of a determined, brilliant physicist, Atkins presents a moving, lyrical tale that reveals the struggles of female scientists and of European Jews between the two World Wars.-MaryAnn Karre
Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 1, 2022
Another real-life, courageous, boundary-pushing woman gets some well-deserved attention in Atkins's (Grasping Mysteries, rev. 11/20; Finding Wonders, rev. 7/16) novel in verse. Readers first meet Jewish physicist Lise Meitner (1878-1968) as she "aches to taste hope," clutching fake papers aboard a train at the German border in 1938. Atkins then leaves her audience in suspense and backtracks to Meitner's childhood in Austria, as she chafes against restrictions preventing girls from formal schooling after age thirteen. When the University of Vienna finally opens its doors to women, Meitner is the only female physics student. After earning a PhD and publishing her work on radiation, she moves to Berlin and begins conducting unpaid research in a makeshift basement laboratory. Vivid and poignant, Atkins's poems chronicle Meitner's hesitation to abandon her experiments and flee Germany after Hitler's rise to power; her horror at realizing her role in the creation of the atomic bomb; and her disappointment that her longtime male collaborator received the Nobel Prize for their shared discovery of nuclear fission, while she was snubbed. Atkins meshes "facts with empathy" in this stirring portrait of -- as Meitner's epitaph reads -- "A Physicist Who Never Lost Her Humanity." An author's note, a timeline, an annotated list of Meitner's colleagues, and a selected bibliography are appended. Tanya D. Auger
(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
January 1, 2022
Another real-life, courageous, boundary-pushing woman gets some well-deserved attention in Atkins's (Grasping Mysteries, rev. 11/20; Finding Wonders, rev. 7/16) novel in verse. Readers first meet Jewish physicist Lise Meitner (1878-1968) as she "aches to taste hope," clutching fake papers aboard a train at the German border in 1938. Atkins then leaves her audience in suspense and backtracks to Meitner's childhood in Austria, as she chafes against restrictions preventing girls from formal schooling after age thirteen. When the University of Vienna finally opens its doors to women, Meitner is the only female physics student. After earning a PhD and publishing her work on radiation, she moves to Berlin and begins conducting unpaid research in a makeshift basement laboratory. Vivid and poignant, Atkins's poems chronicle Meitner's hesitation to abandon her experiments and flee Germany after Hitler's rise to power; her horror at realizing her role in the creation of the atomic bomb; and her disappointment that her longtime male collaborator received the Nobel Prize for their shared discovery of nuclear fission, while she was snubbed. Atkins meshes "facts with empathy" in this stirring portrait of -- as Meitner's epitaph reads -- "A Physicist Who Never Lost Her Humanity." An author's note, a timeline, an annotated list of Meitner's colleagues, and a selected bibliography are appended.
(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)