Women in Biology

Framed in brilliant blue, glowing green, eggplant purple, and even earthy. brown pages, the restless but overly curious gangly girl wearing oversized spectacles and carrying a magnifying glass seeks some answers about nature. She asks what biology is, what makes a butterfly, what cells are, and questions other curious things. In reply, she learns about female scientists that have been active across history such as Maria Sibylla Merian from the seventeenth century, Hildegard of Bingen from the eleventh century, Barbara McClintock from the twentieth century, among a few others. The reader is encouraged to learn about cells and their contents, such as DNA, genes, and transposons; while the story introduces some basic scientific concepts such as learning to ask questions. It starts the young reader on the road to forming hypotheses, testing guesses through experiments, and valuing research. The illustrations are brilliantly stunning, however, some of the depicted female biologists need more age receptive descriptions. Bringing more current female biologists into view might relate better to the youngsters. Talking about jumping genes and transposons demand some building blocks for these terms to resonate with this age group.