The Transuranium People: The Inside Story Book

The book new elements Marie Curie by Della Yannuzzi is a biography telling about the story and accomplishments of Marie Curie, the famous Polish scientist. It starts by tell about Marie's, or Manya's, early life growing up before she became a successful scientist. "Manya's siblings were intelligent too, but they had to work a little harder at their studies"(Yannuzzi, 11). It tells about how as a young kid, Marie was very smart and had a lot of potential. It goes on to talk about her struggles trying to get a good education in the science field as a woman. When Marie got older she started a new life in Paris where she attended La Sorbonne. "At the time Marie registered in 1891, La Sorbonne had some two thousand students enrolled in its School of Sciences. Of these, only twenty-three were women"(Yannuzzi, 38). Marie got married to Pierre Curie in 1895. They attended La Sorbonne together and Marie got pregnant with her first child. "In 1898 Marie named the phenomenon radioactivity, from the Latin radius, meaning ray"(Yannuzzi, 64). Marie had clarified radioactivity. Marie and Pierre used this information to continue research and experimenting that led them to an incredible discovery. On April 19, 1906 tragedy struck having a negative affect on Marie. With her determination she went on to research with radioactivity and worked as director of the Curie Laboratory.

As far as biography's go I thought this book was actually pretty interesting and helpful. I found it easy to understand and I felt it was organized in a way so that events and other information were put together well. I thought it was really helpful how at the end of the book there was a time line, a list of websites, and an index. If you are looking to find out more about Marie Curie this book would be good choice because it was very informative but I didn't find it to be too overwhelming.

I would probably give this book a 3 because it was good for a biography on Marie Curie, and the information it contained was useful to me, but the book was quite boring. Also it was kind of short which I found to be a good thing because it didn't feel like I was reading a huge novel telling me completely irrelevant facts about Marie Curie. I learned a lot from it and it was for the most part things that were easy to remember. I would definitely recommend this book for a source when doing a school project or research paper.