We were very happy to read nonfiction books about the contributions of two little-known women to science and the arts. We began with our picture book,
Lights, Camera, Alice by Mara Rockliff, the story of how Alice Guy Bache, who lived in France, produced, directed, filmed, colored, and edited movies as early as 1907, preceding some of the men who are usually given this credit. We were happy to know about this revolutionary woman, but after a few great beginning sentences we felt that the remaining text of this picture book didn't really do her justice. It told little about her except that she liked to tell stories and decided to create moving pictures....and we all hated the ending, which was like being dropped off a cliff. The back matter, fortunately, presented many more details about her life and work, and we felt much of that information could have been included in the text of the story, and would have definitely made it richer and more interesting. There were also links to two of her 1907 short films, which we watched on a laptop, and all agreed that she was amazingly talented as a producer/director, PLUS she had a great sense of humor.
Our longer book was about another somewhat undersung heroine:
The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science by Joyce Sidman. There was a considerable amount of information about this enterprising scientist/artist who, from a very young age, was fascinated by caterpillars and worms, and kept track of their metamorphosis by drawing and painting EXACT pictures of their various stages of development, including the actual plants and flowers that provided their habitats. She was the first to present insects in exactly that way, and it became the norm years later. We loved how persistent and daring she was, 'bucking the system,' and even traveling along with her daughter from Germany to Surinam in 1699...a rare action for a woman at that time. We unanimously loved her original illustrations throughout the book, which were photographically perfect, and beautifully colored. However, we were put off by many of the editorial decisions made for this book. One- or two-paged boxed explanations of various historical events/issues/entities, were seemingly inserted to present historical context but instead created breaks in the continuity of Maria's story and most of us found them annoying. We felt they could have been included in the 'back matter' or even aluded to in the text with a few explanatory sentences. We didn't object as much to the boxed quotes from Maria in Italics on yellow background throughout the book. A few readers objected to the little 'poems' that introduced each chapter...especially since Sidman is known for her poetry, which is usually much better than the 'vapid poetry', according to one reader, that was presented in this book. We were glad that we read both books and learned about these amazing women of yesteryear.
