Stories Like Me
Wanda Hears the Stars : A Blind Astronomer Listens to the Universe
Wanda Hears the Stars : A Blind Astronomer Listens to the Universe
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Hardcover
Synopsis
An inspiring true story of a woman scientist of color that's a riveting intersectional read for STEM fans ages 6-9.
Growing up in Puerto Rico, Wanda Díaz Merced wanted to learn everything she could about the stars. But in college she started losing her sight. How could she study what she couldn't see?
Wanda found a way. She learned to hear the stars using sonification, which converts data into sounds. Listening to those chimes and drumbeats, she made new discoveries about the universe.
Today Wanda is a leading advocate for inclusive science. She and her friend Amy S. Hansen collaborated on this book to inspire children to follow their curiosity no matter the challenges. As Wanda urges, "Never give up!"
Wanda Hears the Stars is the perfect picture book biography to inspire any STEM-minded future scientist!
Authors
Amy S. Hansen is an award-winning science writer who has published more than thirty books. Her favorite part of her job is finding out the answers to mysteries. Sometimes that means interviewing people, traveling to new places, or taking things apart to see how they work. It always means reading a lot!
Wanda Díaz Merced believes that science is for everyone! As a blind astrophysicist, she studies the stars by turning data into sound. She is a leading advocate for multisensorial data, which increases access to information, and has spoken before the UN and given TED talks about the need for more inclusive science.
Illustrator
Rocío Arreola Mendoza is the illustrator of Sea of Constellations, Paula's Patches, and other picture books for children. She is also a freelance illustrator and the co-founder of Cúrcumas, a women-led creative studio. She lives with her family in northern Mexico.
Praise
♦ This picture-book biography traces the struggle and triumph of a little girl who kept searching until she found a new path to viewing the stars. Today, Merced is a world-renowned astrophysicist and advocate for inclusivity in science, but as a child, she never saw stars at all, as the rain-forest canopy in Puerto Rico, where she grew up, obscured her view. When Merced was nine, on a fishing trip with her father, she saw stars for the first time, as well as a meteor shower. This was the revelation—brilliantly conveyed by Mendoza through pointy stars and streams of color—that transformed Merced’s life, leading her to study physics. After Merced lost her sight as a college student, she learned that she could access the stars by tuning into radio waves in space, allowing her to hear what she couldn’t see, part of the process of sonification, explained clearly and compellingly in the text. The digital illustrations, with their startling images of light and dark, enhance the theme. “A Note from Wanda” at book’s end includes her rallying cry, “Science is for everyone!”
—Booklist, starred review
Product Details
ISBN: 9781623544874
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