She Caught the Light: Williamina Stevens Fleming: Astronomer by Julianna Swaney, Kathryn Lasky
Published by HarperCollins on January 19, 2021
ISBN: 0062849301
Pages: 34
Genres: Biography/Autobiography
Format: Picture Book Nonfiction
Goodreads

This is a great biography about Williamina Stevens Fleming, an exceptionally bright young Scottish woman who, through her persistent curiosity and question-asking, would end up becoming the first woman given an official title at Harvard and, in 1906, the first woman elected to an honorary membership in England’s Royal Astronomical Society. Wow!

Fleming was supported in her quest for knowledge from the time she was an infant. Her constant questions got her a job working for the director of the Harvard College Observatory (after she started as his maid). She was young, widowed, and expecting and she eventually worked, raised her son,  and argued that his female employees should be paid as well as the male employees were. AND she discovered the Horsehead Nebula.

This is one of those biographies I read and think “Why didn’t I know about her?!” It’s a great read for her story alone, but I also love the emphasis on lots of question-asking being a sign of intelligence; I hope it encourages more and more questions.

Reviewed by Sarah Maciejewski, Patten Free Library, Bath