Dignifying Science: Stories About Women Scientists

Rating:
Summary: Mostly solid facts, comic book format
Review: A single writer partnered with 12 different artists in stories about 6 different women scientists. Some stories obviously succeed better than others.

For young people who like graphic novels and have some interest in science, I recommend it highly. But as a women's history buff and a comic book fan I find it a little disappointing. The comic format is ideal for high drama stories but is not always used at it's full potential here.

For example, in the life of Barbara McClintock, two pages cover the time period from 1951 to 1983. They show her lecturing to men in business suits with their hands over their ears. The crowd thins out in the 60's and then begins to swell with more casually dressed people, both male and female, who don't have their hands over their ears. Then she gets the Nobel prize. The faces in the crowds are consistently expressionless. I think this misses the real drama of McClintock's life. She was so brilliant that her theory was not understood when she first presented it. She chose to continue her research even when it was not reaching a receptive audience and because she documented it for decades, when other researchers later repeated her experiments and discovered her documentation, she received the recognition she deserved.

This was seldom the case with earlier women scientists, for example, Rosalind Franklin. Franklin's fascinating story, unfortunately, is difficult to follow through time and four different artists' styles.

And, in an interesting bit of reverse sexism, Birute Galdikas' story is told without once mentioning (or picturing) her first husband who worked beside her daily for 20 years. OK, so her whole life story had to be told in only 21 pages, but the ghosts of all the women scientists whose husbands' got credit for all their work recognize a kindred spirit when they see one.

In a format that's known for pounding points home, the drama here is often implied and understated. Perhaps less would be missed if the format was full color instead of black and white. Better yet, read some biographies of these women and discuss with your children how you would tell their stories to preserve the real drama.

This is a good introduction to some fascinating women for those who like the graphic novel format. Use it as a starting point.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly solid facts, comic book format
Review: A single writer partnered with 12 different artists in stories about 6 different women scientists. Some stories obviously succeed better than others.

For young people who like graphic novels and have some interest in science, I recommend it highly. But as a women's history buff and a comic book fan I find it a little disappointing. The comic format is ideal for high drama stories but is not always used at it's full potential here.

For example, in the life of Barbara McClintock, two pages cover the time period from 1951 to 1983. They show her lecturing to men in business suits with their hands over their ears. The crowd thins out in the 60's and then begins to swell with more casually dressed people, both male and female, who don't have their hands over their ears. Then she gets the Nobel prize. The faces in the crowds are consistently expressionless. I think this misses the real drama of McClintock's life. She was so brilliant that her theory was not understood when she first presented it. She chose to continue her research even when it was not reaching a receptive audience and because she documented it for decades, when other researchers later repeated her experiments and discovered her documentation, she received the recognition she deserved.

This was seldom the case with earlier women scientists, for example, Rosalind Franklin. Franklin's fascinating story, unfortunately, is difficult to follow through time and four different artists' styles.

And, in an interesting bit of reverse sexism, Birute Galdikas' story is told without once mentioning (or picturing) her first husband who worked beside her daily for 20 years. OK, so her whole life story had to be told in only 21 pages, but the ghosts of all the women scientists whose husbands' got credit for all their work recognize a kindred spirit when they see one.

In a format that's known for pounding points home, the drama here is often implied and understated. Perhaps less would be missed if the format was full color instead of black and white. Better yet, read some biographies of these women and discuss with your children how you would tell their stories to preserve the real drama.

This is a good introduction to some fascinating women for those who like the graphic novel format. Use it as a starting point.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening Reading
Review: Ottaviani's DIGNIFYING SCIENCE is a well illustrated and well written work. It does what a lot of good nonfiction has done recently - it focuses on those often forgotten people and events that were important and influential on the better known ideas and forces that shape our world today. In this instance, Ottaviani has centered his attention on women scientists, inventors and researchers who discovered, researched, and supported major scientific achievements in the last century. He and the women artists who illustrate the book do a superb job of introducing us to the contributions of these people who we never knew or knew little, but to whom we owe a collective, and enormous, debt.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been much, much better . . .
Review: This well-meant companion volume to the author's _Two Fisted Science_ is, unfortunately, not nearly as successful as graphic fiction. This time, five women artists tell the stories of five women scientists. While trying to focus on lesser-known people, Ottaviani finally broke down and included a fore-and-aft pair of shorts on Marie Curie. If you've read Watson's _The Double Helix,_ you may already have heard of Rosalind Franklin, who came very close to discovering the essential shape of DNA before Crick and Watson -- had she only not moved in the wrong direction on a couple of minor points (and possessed a less abrasive personality). Barbara McClintock picked up a Nobel for her work on the corn genome, you'd really never know what her field was from the badly written story (though the art is okay). Biruté Galdikas has become the world's leading authority on orangutans (yes, she's still out there in the jungles of Borneo) and you'll learn a lot about them -- and her -- from Anne Timmons's nicely done piece. But the story of mathematician Lise Meitner is also pretty indistinct. The best of the collection, actually, is Carl Speed McNeil's very well told and drawn story of the scientific side of Hedy Lamarr, of all people. Hedy (not Heddy) actually held some wartime patents in electronics (which became a crucial part of cell phone technology), but still was treated like a bimbo both by her first husband and by Louis B. Mayer after she escaped to the U.S. This book could have been much, much better.