How Ruth Patrick Taught the World about Water Pollution
January 1, 2025
The true story of a girl whose love for pond scum saved America's waterways. At age 5, Ruth Patrick took her first look at pond scum in her father's microscope. The shimmering, gliding, gemlike creatures she saw were diatoms: microscopic algae that would determine the course of Ruth's life. Though it wasn't considered proper in 1913 for a girl to tromp through muddy streams, Ruth's father nurtured her interests, encouraging her to "leave the world a better place than you found it." Working for the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia after graduate school, Ruth aimed to measure the effects of pollution on rivers, a topic that hadn't yet been investigated. She spent a summer collecting samples and identifying species, concluding that the key to understanding a stream's health wasbiodiversity (a term that had not yet been coined). Ruth devoted her later years to organizing community action against pollution, helping to draft laws to safeguard waterways, and educating generations of young scientists. The text flows naturally from scientific terminology to lyrical storytelling, making this an excellent choice for a classroom read-aloud. Ethereal, hand-painted watercolor wash illustrations are enhanced by delicate digital ink lines. Blue, green, and brown hues evoke the murky streams, while intricate line overlays highlight the crystalline details of microscopic diatoms. Budding naturalists will eagerly dip their toes into this one. (more information about Ruth Patrick, quote sources, timeline, selected bibliography)(Picture-book biography. 6-9)
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March 1, 2025
Grades 1-3 This relatable story of a little girl who "fell in love with pond scum" serves as an accessible introduction to the wonders found in a drop of water in Winterbottom's beautifully illustrated science biography. Readers will easily see how a love of science can turn into a career as they follow Ruth Patrick from splashing around rivers and trudging muddy shorelines on to college and then discovering and putting into use the Patrick Principle, that an environment's health can be measured by its biodiversity. Readers will enjoy Patrick's tenacity as she horrifies her tidy mother by bringing home overflowing, muddy buckets and applaud her father's delight at his daughter's curiosity about the natural world. Though the font is quite small, Reagan's detailed, full-spread multimedia illustrations burst with details of shoreline and underwater flora and fauna (the closeups of startled-looking fish are a highlight), and some pages offer labeled images of creatures Patrick would have found in her rural Pennsylvania outings. A must for science and biography shelves.
COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.