Traveling Brains Book Review: Nothing Stopped Sophie
Are you looking for books about math for your classroom? I attended the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Conference this past November and had a blast! I met great people and got new ideas to bring back to my teaching. While at the conference, I came across a poster that was created by Renzulli. Renzulli is to gifted research what Einstein was to physics. His work changed everything in the gifted research world. His approach to enrichment focuses on developing students’ strengths. The poster I saw at the conference was titled “Global Awareness Through Book Inquiry in the Renzulli Learning System”. In this blog and in future blogs I am going to review some of these books.
For this blog post, I am going to focus on the book “Nothing Stopped Sophie: The Story of Unshakeable Mathematician Sophie Germain.” The book is the true story of Sophie Germain written by Cheryl Bardoe and illustrated by Barbara McClintock. Flint Hills Books in Council Grove, KS special ordered it for me.
Book summary: Even as a child, Sophie loved math, but her parents tried to stop her from her learning math because they though it would bring her heartbreak and scorn. Sophie continued to learn more about math despite her parents attempts to stop her. Sophie wanted to go to school at a university during a time when females were not welcome at the university. She was able to attend the university by mail by signing her homework Monsieur LeBlanc.
When Sophie was thirty-two, she observed an experiment where a violin bow was rubbed against plate’s edge. The salt on the plate formed circles, diamonds, and figure eights from the vibrations. Sophie sent several years researching why this happened. She even won a prize from the Royal Academy of Sciences. Her research was used to build skyscrapers and bridges all over the world.
So why should I get this book?
The book is about a woman who loves math. Representation matters. Young women need to be reading books about women who love math. It is not the only thing they should read, but it should be an option.
The book is about someone outside of American culture during an important time in history. As someone who enjoys history and traveling, I think that students need to be reading about cultures outside of their own and learning about different parts of history.
The illustrations are beautifully done. I love the way she includes numbers and equations into the illustrations.
What do I want to check out as a result of reading this book?
Awesome Math Girls- This website is awesome! It is has a blog and research articles. In addition, it has recommendations for websites, books, and camps. Information is also provided about math competitions.
Center for Architecture Activities- I came across the website about architecture and I thought it was cool. It has a variety of project ideas that can help students gain foundational skills needed before maybe digging into architecture more deeply. Honestly, the projects look like so much fun. I think students who are talented visual spatially will definitely enjoy the projects from this website.
