From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8-The child-friendly writing in these books raises them a jot above the standard science biographical fare. Fleming presents the Scottish researcher's quest in cheerful terms, detailing his sports-loving and unconventionally messy life in ways that allow his brilliance to glow without losing sight of the serendipitous absentmindedness of this particular professor. He chose his London medical school on the basis of its water-polo team (it was pretty pathetic medically) and stayed on as a researcher because he was a standout on their rifle team, which allowed him to do the work that would one day lead him to discover penicillin. Teller, somewhat dryer, traces the life and accomplishments of the man who, like other European scientists, came to the United States as a refugee from Hitler and helped build the atomic bomb. Fascinated with the challenge of designing an even more powerful hydrogen bomb, Teller and others created the Lawrence Livermore Lab in California, where the H-bomb would be created. Both books maintain a breezy pace and evenhanded perspective and include interesting, unexpected aspects of the lives and personalities of these two men. Black-and-white full-page photos attempt to illuminate, but sometimes jar (one in Fleming pictures kids in tennis shoes playing in an urban slum-in the 1890s?). There are no bibliographies to enable readers to further investigate (or verify) some of the direct quotations and more obscure claims, a troubling omission in otherwise meritorious biographies.
Mary R. Hofmann, Rivera Middle School, Merced, CA Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Never one to worry about neatness, Scottish-born scientist Alexander Fleming often grew cultures in unwashed petri dishes. In the hot summer of 1928, Fleming left for a two-week vacation. He left his London laboratory a mess and didn't close his window. In his haste, he also forgot to clean up an old culture plate that he had smeared with staphylococcus bacteria. Soon after he left, a spore containing a rare strain of a fungus mold called penicillium drifted into his lab from another lab in the same building. By chance, it settled onto the messy culture plate.
And if that wasn't lucky enough, the weather stepped in to add even more. The temperature briefly dropped, so the mold began to grow. Then things heated up again, and the bacteria on the plate sprouted like a weed. Except in one spot. That one spot attracted Fleming's eye when he returned from vacation. It was where the penicillium spore had settled and grown. Fleming believed he had discovered something very important. Not everyone else agreed. In fact, it would take until World War II, when he was well into middle age, before anyone appreciated his discovery.
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