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Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium

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The biography for children is rarely done well, if at all. It's too easy to take the life of someone famous, slap a few facts together, and then sell copies of your newest creation to countless school libraries around the country. When it comes to bios for small fry there are two modes of thought. Either you're going to do the least interesting, simplest biography (thereby boring both your child reader and yourself), or you're going to put some work into your creation and place the subject of your biography within the context of their times. Ms. Carla Killough McClafferty has opted for the latter. "Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium" starts slow and then builds and builds until you find yourself in a remarkable world of radium drinks, pills, and miracle cures. McClafferty is no stranger to the world of radiation, having penned a history of the X-Ray for kids before. Now she turns her sights to one of the greatest female scientists in the history of the world. From stage frightened Polish child, to Parisian researcher, to her death at the age of sixty-six, Marie Curie's life is propped before us with just the right combination of kid appeal and facts.

She was born a poor Polish girl on November 7, 1867. Smart from the start, Marie Curie, born Marya Sklodowska, dreamed of someday being given the chance to study at the University of Paris. After many years of saving and unpleasantness, she was able to come to France to fulfill this dream. While there, she met and married Pierre Curie and together the two of them set about discovering a couple elements and the true nature of that most mysterious of substances, radium. Author Carla McClafferty takes Marie's discoveries and counterpoints the rise in radium popularity with the high-profile Marie reluctantly had to adapt to. She was a celebrity of her time so that just as radium caught on with the public, so too did Marie's personal life. Remarkable in more ways than one, this is a story of a scientist who broke with convention to become extraordinary. This telling matches her in magnificence.

I admit that in my ignorance I didn't think there'd be much to say about Marie Curie in a book for kids. I mean, she grew up, married Pierre Curie, discovered radium, and died of radiation poisoning, right? I thought maybe Ms. McClafferty would have a chance to make a long book if she simply stretched out Marie's early life for as long as possible. So when I got to page 32 and found the book's subject already studying uranium rays, I couldn't help but yell at the narrator, "Slow down, McClafferty! There isn't much more to say! You're going too fast!" Of course, she wasn't. This book goes at exactly the right speed, never dwelling on a dull factoid or pulling to inordinate length a moment in Mrs. Curie's life that needed no stretching. And while I knew the basic "first woman" facts surrounding Marie, I had no idea what a great person she was as well. This is someone who refused to patent radium because she felt the element belonged to the world and not just the people who happened to find it. A woman who drove mobile X-ray units into war zones to aid doctors. Who named a new element Polonium after her beloved Poland. I knew none of this before and with McClafferty's snappy writing helping me along, I feel any kid that reads this book will learn so very much.

A couple years ago I had a chance to visit Minneapolis, Minnesota's now defunct Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. Besides the exhibits featuring ear candles and phrenology machines, there was a large section of the museum dedicated to the radium fads. It never would have occurred to me to think that Marie Curie had an indirect connection to the bottles of Radithor or the Revigator jars on display under glass cases. Even the Museum, though, didn't have half the fascinating items shown in photographs in this book. Radium was the original glow-in-the-dark paint, making everything from watch dials to crucifixes shine when the lights were low. The most frightening of all of these? The "Atomic `Bomb'" ring. Says the book, "You could see tiny flashes of light come and go as individual atoms of a radioactive material gave off energy and lit up the zinc sulfide in the ring." McClafferty knows to pepper her book with stuff of this nature, giving the book just the right amount of zing and zazz for the kiddies reading it.

One problem I do have with the book is that McClafferty doesn't really drill home the danger of all these radioactive consumer products. Take, once more, the Atomic Bomb ring. Was it really dangerous to kids or was it as harmless as the manufacturers said? Obviously McClafferty wouldn't be able to say just how harmful each and every product shown in this book was (there are, after all, quite a lot of them) but I would have liked a little clarification on a couple points. It isn't until we get to the end of the book that we learn exactly what it is that radium poisoning does to the human body. Even then, to what degree is radium outside of the body dangerous? We hear that when someone wants to view the original notebooks of the Curies they must, "sign a form releasing the library from responsibility for any `possible risks of radioactivity'". But to what extent would those notebooks be dangerous? A little more clarification on contact with radium without ingesting it would be welcome in this title.

And yet nothing eases my fears faster than an author who knows the importance of displaying their source materials. Right from the start a "Note to the Reader" explains why the author chose one spelling of Marya Sklodowska over another. Later on, Ms. McClafferty gives us copious Source Notes, a rather impressive Selected Bibliography, Illustration Credits, an Index, and (most impressive of all) a wonderful list of well-selected Recommended Web Sites. Kudos all around. What I want to get through to you is that this book is equal parts fun writing and great factual info. Sure it's chock full of great info about this great woman. But it also happens to be a gripping read and a great story to boot. Marie Curie appears here to be the kind of woman authors dream of writing biographies about. Ms. McClafferty just happened to be bright enough to tie in Mrs. Curie's life to the world around her and the fads that came about due to the radium hype. A great book and well worth adding to any and every collection in the country.

The title, "Something out of Nothing," is truly inspired! It taps into so many layers: 1) Marie's humble beginnings and rise to greatness; 2) alchemy, and the creation of precious material from base sources; 3) the unexpected discovery of radioactivity; and even 4) the "big bang" origin of the universe.

According to the introduction this book is primarily intended for juveniles (high school students, or even middle school); this is reinforced by the large type font, the large amount of white space, and the many illustrations. But this book transcends your typical juvenile book by a wide margin! It is worthwhile reading for professional scientists, as well as anyone interested in the history of science. While it can be perused in a couple of hours, there is enough material there to bring one back for a second and third readings.

The book does a good job summarizing Marie's life: Her humble beginning; her pact with her older sister to obtain a good education; her move to France; courtship and marriage to Pierre Curie; choosing Becquerel's newly discovered radioactivity for her doctoral dissertation; birth of daughters; discovery of radium; Nobel Prize; fame; health problems and death. Not even the "scandal" with Langevin is left out.

I was familiar with the basic biography of Mare's and Pierre's prior to reading this book. But I learned some new facts: 1) I knew that Marie had two daughters; actually bore three: the second daughter died shortly after birth; 2) I was under the impression that Pierre died in a taxicab accident. In actuality, he was run over by a horse-drawn freight wagon; 3) Marie was not originally included in the Nobel Prize of 1903 (for the discovery of radioactivity). Originally, only Pierre and Henry Becquerel were to be awarded. It was through Pierre's efforts that Marie was included.

In keeping with current trends, the book has a slight "feminist" feel to it. That is fine, but perhaps "Marie the social climber" - something the book "pooh-poohs" - is not that easily dismissed. Despite the obvious fact that she was smart and extremely hard working, deserving of much credit, she might still have had a touch of "social climber."

The book is not completely without flaws. Sometimes the science is a little careless. For example, it is stated that radium/zinc-sulfide luminous paint degrades over time "because it destroys the zinc." That the paint degrades with time is absolutely true, as can be seen by the browning of the numbers on the dials of old radium alarm clocks. But the reason is the destruction of the zinc sulfide crystals, not the zinc itself. In short, there is no "transmutation" of the elemental zinc going on.
At another place it states that to prove that radium is an element, the Curies needed to produce the actual radium metal, not just a salt of radium. While producing the metallic element was a step in the right direction, it is not absolutely conclusive: at one time a new "element," named didymium, was believed to have been discovered. It was reduced to the metal; but subsequently it was found to consist of a mixture of two different elements.

In short: a highly readable, informative, and interesting book - all at a modest price. A book I highly recommend.

I've always loved to read biographies. If you have a middle reader, you'll appreciate Something Out of Nothing. Carla McClafferty has combined solid research with excellent writing.

In the final pages of this book, she writes, "The life of Marie Curie demonstrates that one person can make a difference in the world. She overcame obstables of poverty, fear, depression, discrimination, personal grief, and public humiliation to accomplish groundbreaking scientific work."

The storytelling combined with photographs will make this a valuable book for any young reader. It's an ideal addition for any library or home.

I purchased this book for my grandniece, to demonstrate what women can achieve, and ended up reading it first. I loved how the author presented Marie Curie and her discoveries. I loved how she presented all of the hardships she encountered along the way, yet prevailed in her work. I learned a lot about Madam Curie from this very wonderful book. I hope my grandniece and other young girls will get inspiration from the story and the woman it is about.

I always say that if all history-based textbooks were written like some of the best nonfiction books I've read in my day (ON THE REZ by Ian Frazier, FS&G, being one of them), then kids would gobble up history in school! Carla McClafferty's SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING is one of those books. It reads like a STORY, in a delightful but informative way that painlessly imparts the facts about Marie Curie and her life's work. I read it straight through, like I would an entertaining novel! I would recommend this book to kids looking for a biography to read--and to adults, too. Excellent job.

I read through 3 biographies of Marie Curie, and I chose this one for my son. It had both the readable story qualities of the biography by Krull and the science details of the short bio by Birch & Birmingham (used in Beautiful Feet). And, I think it has enough historical info to make this scientist memorable and interesting to a young person, and even to an oldster like me :o)

Something Out of Nothing is the true story of Marie Curie, her relationship with Pierre Curie, and their discovery of radium. This is truly an inspiring book about a wonderfully brave and creative woman. I highly recommend it.