Johannes Kepler: Discovering the Laws of Celestial Motion Book

A biography of Johannes Kepler, the seventeenth-century German astronomer and mathematician who formulated the three laws of planetary motion.

Shari Fesko - VOYA

Every year, school and public libraries alike are flooded with students asking for scientist biographies. Thanks to biographer Boerst, these fine new biographies give students access to two lesser known but important names. In clear and concise language, Boerst chronicles the lives of Renaissance astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, painting a realistic picture of his subjects and detailing both their successes and their failures. The volume on Kepler speaks of his fierce competitive spirit, his impoverished and haphazard upbringing by a mother whom he described as "swarthy, gossiping, and quarrelsome," and his endless mission to prove that the planets moved around the sun, not Earth. In the volume about Brahe, readers learn of his privileged upbringing, his frowned-upon marriage to a commoner, and the building of the first research facility dedicated to astronomy, Uraniborg. It was only through Brahe's observations that Kepler was able to create his three laws of celestial motion, which Sir Isaac Newton used to complete his studies on gravity. Other Renaissance Scientists series titles profile Galileo, Copernicus, and Isaac Newton. These slim volumes will be welcome in both public and school library biography collections. VOYA CODES: 4Q 2P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2003, Morgan Reynolds, 144p.; Index. Illus. Photos. Charts. Biblio. Source Notes., PLB. Ages 11 to 15.