Blast Off!
How Mary Sherman Morgan Fueled America into Space
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A New York Public Library Best Book for Kids
The inspirational story of Mary Sherman, the world's first female rocket scientist, who overcame gender barriers and many failures to succeed.
Growing up in the 1920s on a dirt-poor farm in North Dakota, Mary Sherman's life was filled with chores--until she finally began school and discovered she loved to learn.
Mary excelled at science, especially chemistry, and leaped at the chance to work in a laboratory during World War II designing rocket fuels. And when the US decided to enter the space race, Mary was chosen over her male colleagues to create the fuel to launch a rocket carrying America's first satellite.
With courage and perseverance, Mary's hard work and calculations paid off, opening up a brand-new frontier for exploration. This STEM biography of an unsung and courageous woman in science will inspire and motivate young readers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Slade introduces a little-known hero of the space race in this dynamically illustrated portrayal of rocket fuel scientist Mary Sherman Morgan (1921–2004), a key figure in developing the propellant that powered America's first satellite into space in 1958. A chronological narrative details Morgan's late start to school, at age eight, before tracing her early career and diving into the excitement of the top-secret task that required the lab's "best man"—Morgan. Wern Comport's vivid multimedia illustrations depict Morgan and other engineers at work in images that teem with equations, data tables, formulas, and slide rules. While the book presents as a biography, an author's note clarifies that a need "to creatively fill in a few gaps" renders the book, instead, historical fiction. Regardless, Mary's example of perseverance and glass ceiling–shattering delivers a motivating message for would-be scientists. Back matter concludes. Ages 7–10.
