Mysterious Mathematicians
There are many women throughout history whose stories have yet to be told. Women who have made monumental contributions in their respective fields that we just don’t know about. Mostly because they were never credited with the work, credit always taken by their male counterparts. Thankfully we have some brilliant Canadian authors taking up the charge of making sure we know all about these incredible women.
Helaine Becker and Kari Rust have come together to give us the story of Emmy Noether in their new non-fiction picture book biography Emmy Noether: The Most Important Mathematician You’ve Never Heard of. In this fascinating picture book, geared towards older readers, learners will find out how Emmy turned her nose up at convention and forged ahead down a path, contributing two major ideas to the fields of physics and mathematics all in a very short lifetime. The story is packed with so much information about Emmy Noether and will appeal to younger readers as well, they just may need to read it in smaller chunks.
I love Helaine Becker’s voice in this story. It’s saucy! She thumbs her nose at the ridiculous ideas of women in the late 1800s and early 1900s with statements like: “Emmy was much smarter than everyone else in her classes. The other students knew it and didn’t like it.” The little asides thrown into the illustrations by illustrator Kari Rust really drive home the absurdity of not allowing women to earn a university degree or teach at a university. We learn in this book that it was Emmy Noether who proved a part of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity that no one else could. It’s crazy how we all know about Albert Einstein but not Emmy Noether.
The illustrations in this story are amazing! Not only is there the snarky little asides with the characters, Kari Rust really captured the time period and almost made Emmy look like an enigma. She shines on each page lending drama to the story.
If you have been following along for a while you know how much we love non-fiction picture books so this was obviously a hit with The Bear and The Bee. Children really love learning about real things in the real world. It helps them make sense of the world they inhabit everyday. We are so excited to read more and more from our favourite authors about all the important people we just don’t know about.
