Radioactive!: How Irène Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World-- A Review and a Giveaway

Congratulations to Connie Saunders who won my Mr. Puffball Stunt Cat Across America ARC and Linda Phillips who won the hardcover book. Thanks to all of you for entering. Lots more giveaways coming up, starting right here.

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Radioactive! is one of those books that makes you wish you had listened better during high school chemistry and physics. But even if your high school days were a long time ago like mine were, Winifred Conkling has written the history of how artificial radioactivity was discovered in such an engaging and reader-friendly way, that the science is accessible.  Better yet, it made an unscientific person like myself want to understand concepts like nuclear fission and transuranic elements. And that says a lot! 

Radioactive! is the story of how two largely unknown women- Irene Curie and Lise Meitner--worked independently on this important discovery. I selected this book from Recorded Books because Lillie, the African American protagonist in Half-Truths, wants to become a scientist.  Irene's and Lise's stories helped me gain insight into Lillie's motivation and her thoughts about science.

Irene Curie 

Conkling includes the backstory for both scientists. Irene, the daughter of famous Marie Curie who developed the theory of radioactivity, seems to have been born to be a scientist. She was educated along with other French children of notable academics, studied science at the Sorbonne, and her doctorate dissertation was on the alpha rays of polonium, the element her parents discovered (along with radium) that was named after Marie's country of origin, Poland. 

Irene and Marie
working together in 1925

Irene worked with her mother during WWI helping to set up and operate mobile x-ray units. Irene not only inherited her mother's passion for science, but also the conviction that women scientists should be treated equally with men. Like her mother, she received a Noble prize in Chemistry (Marie also received one for Physics). But unfortunately,  Irene's death--like her mother's--was a result of working closely with radioactive materials. 

In 1934 the Joliot-Curies finally made the discovery that sealed their place in scientific history. Building on the work of Marie and Pierre Curie, who had isolated naturally-occurring radioactive elements, the Joliot-Curies realized the alchemist’s dream of turning one element into another: creating radioactive nitrogen from boron, radioactive isotopes of phosphorus from aluminum, and silicon from magnesium. .....

Irène’s group pioneered research into radium nuclei that led a separate group of German physicists, led by Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassman, to discover nuclear fission: the splitting of the nucleus itself, emitting vast amounts of energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irène_Joliot-Curie.

Lise Meitner

 As a child growing up in Austria, Lise Meitner kept a notebook under her pillow of things she was enthralled with such as the colors of oil slicks and reflected light. As a grown woman, she was not allowed to attend a public institution of higher learning so she studied physics privately. Since she enjoyed both mathematics and physics, she attended lectures on both subjects and was the second woman in Austria to receive a doctorate degree in physics. Born of Jewish parents, she converted to Christianity as an adult. 

These excerpts from Wikipedia, summarize Meitner's scientific career: 

In 1912 the research group Hahn–Meitner moved to the newly founded Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute (KWI) in Berlin-Dahlem, south west in Berlin. She worked without salary as a "guest" in Hahn's department of Radiochemistry. It was not until 1913, at 35 years old and following an offer to go to Prague as associate professor, that she got a permanent position at KWI.

In 1917, she and Hahn discovered the first long-lived isotope of the element protactinium, for which she was awarded the Leibniz Medal by the Berlin Academy of Sciences. That year, Meitner was given her own physics section at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry.^[11]

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In 1926, Meitner became the first woman in Germany to assume a post of full professor in physics, at the University of Berlin. In 1935, as head of the physics department of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem (today "Hahn-Meitner-Building of the Free University) she and Otto Hahn, the director of the KWI, undertook the so called "transuranium research" program. This program eventually led to the unexpected discovery of the nuclear fission of heavy nuclei in December 1938, half a year after she had left Berlin. She was praised by Albert Einstein as the "German Marie Curie".^[11][22][23]

World War II divided countries and scientists. Even though protected for a time by her Austrian citizenship, when the Nazis found out she had Jewish parents, she was forced to flee Germany. Exiled in the Netherlands and then in Sweden, Meitner continued her research--although without her precious laboratory equipment.

World War II

I admit that the science behind their discoveries is incredible. But what interested me was how the war changed everything for Meitner and Curie. Suddenly, the research they had done to harness the huge power within the atom, was taken out of their hands and used to create the atomic bomb. Both woman wanted nucleaer energy to be used in peaceful ways. Neither anticipated an application for warfare and both felt guilty after hearing of the destruction in Hiroshima. 

Nuclear fission experimental setup, reconstructed at the Deutsches Museum, Munich

In an interview with the West German television (ARD, March 8, 1959) Meitner said:^[30]

Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann were able to do this by exceptionally good chemistry, fantastically good chemistry, which was way ahead of what any one else was capable of at that time. The Americans learned to do it later. But at that time, Hahn and Strassmann were really the only ones who could do it. And that was because they were such good chemists. Somehow they really succeeded in using chemistry to demonstrate and prove a physical process.

Although I quoted Wikipedia above, I can assure you that Winifred Conkling did an amazing amount of original research before writing Radioactive! and that is apparent when reading or listening to this book. Readers will be fascinated by the interplay of science, history, and political intrigue. 

I am giving away my copy of this audio CD in conjunction with the fall issue of Talking Story on Radiation: Friend or Foe. Leave me a comment by September 23 for one chance to win this excellent book that would be useful in a middle or high school classroom. Share this on social media or leave another comment through Talking Story and you'll be entered twice. Just make sure that you tell me what you have done and PLEASE leave your email address if you are new to this blog. 

Meet Kathleen Burkinshaw--Debut Middle Grade Author

As many of you know, I love sharing my fellow writers' good news. Here is an interview with Kathleen Burkinshaw, author of the debut middle grade historical novel, The Last Cherry Blossom. Next week I will post my review. I hope this will get your interest aroused and you'll leave a comment to win my ARC!

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CAROL: I understand that you grew up hearing your mother’s stories about Hiroshima. How much of The Last Cherry Blosoom was fact and how much was fiction? 

KATHLEEN: I used quite a bit from my mother’s life.  Some of the ‘fiction’ was the order and timeframe. The events in her life did not happen all in one year like Yuriko’s in the book.  The facts I used included: my mother came from a wealthy family with Samurai ancestry, and her Papa did own his own newspaper business.  Her Aunt and cousin moved into her home prior to the double wedding.  My mother lived on the same street as her friend Machiko and they enjoyed listening to jazz music together.  

CAROL: What did your research entail?

KATHLEEN: I spent many, many, many hours reading books written about how WWII affected the people in Japan. There were some books that had diaries of older people during the years that Japan was at war.  Japan had been at war since 1937 with China. So by the time that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the Japanese people had already been at war for four long years. By reading these accounts, I was able to get a better understanding of how the Japanese viewed their Emperor and the lengths some would go to support him.  I researched newspaper headlines, radio show slogans, and propaganda poster copy.  

Of course my mother gave her account of her experience on August 6^th.  I also read books about other survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well.  My intentions when I wrote this book and when I do my presentations are to keep it nonpolitical.  

Kathleen with her mother, Toshiko Ishikawa, 2013

We visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum last year. We also honored my mother at the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic bomb victims. The people in the library were so kind.  They spent two hours with me and helped me find on a map where my mom lived.  That was when I realized that she was much closer to the epicenter than she had remembered. She was only 2 miles away. A miracle that she survived.

Kathleen with her daughter Sara at the
A Dome in Hiroshima, 2015

I also researched effects of radiation from that blast, as well as the different type of damage and burns caused by an atomic bomb vs. a regular bombshell. The main fact that I learned which always leaves an impression on the middle school students: a comparison between the number of tons of TNT the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (15 thousand tons of TNT) that caused all the damage I show them on my slides to the largest of the warheads America now has (2.5 MILLION tons of TNT)!!

"Little Boy" replica of the bomb
photo courtesy Kathleen Burkinshaw

CAROL What was your mother’s reaction to the story?

KATHLEEN: My mother read my first draft, so she had me change words that were not accurate or settings that needed tweaking.  She read the final draft of the manuscript that my agent used for submission to publishers.  She loved it, probably because I was her daughter.  But the one thing that amazed me – her first reaction to hearing it would be published--she couldn’t believe that people would really want to read about her and her Papa. That deeply touched her.

CAROL: You used a lot of Japanese words in the text. Was it difficult to decide which to use? 

KATHLEEN: I really wanted to stay true to the culture and the way they spoke during that timeframe.  My editor supported me with that.  I initially was going to write it with an explanation of the word later in the sentence, but that could be cumbersome.  My editor suggested the glossary.  

CAROL: How did you know where to begin your story?

KATHLEEN: That stumped me in the beginning.  Originally I had too much info dump and flashbacks, which did not work well.  That’s when I had to throw the actual timing of events away and start fresh with lining up events in a one-year time span.  It took a lot of sticky notes and blank paper to re-arrange the time line.

CAROL: How did you decide to write it in first POV? 

KATHLEEN: I was on the fence until I read BLUE by Joyce Moyer Hostetter, which was in first person. As the reader, I felt closer to the character’s emotions. The more I thought of it, I felt it would touch my readers more if they witnessed the horror through the main character’s eyes.  Originally my agent wanted me to write it in 3^rd person.  I really want to keep it in first.  But I rewrote the crucial scenes on the day of the bombing in 3^rd person and submitted that to her.  She agreed first person would be best. I was very happy and relieved. After reading excerpts from THE LAST CHERRY BLOSSOM many students feel they are “there in that moment”.  It is something a few paragraphs in a textbook does not give them.

CAROL: Can you tell us a little about your path to publication?

KATHLEEN: I found my wonderful agent, Anna Olswanger, through a written critique at the 2012 SCBWI Carolina’s fall conference.  I didn’t get an offer of representation at that time though.  I continued to work on the manuscript with her comments and suggestions. When I felt it was ready, I emailed Anna around January 2013 and asked if she would look at my revisions.  She had me do several rewrites. I submitted my revised 10 pages to the SCBWI Carolina’s Writing Contest in 2013 and won first place! 

Just before the 2013 SCBWI fall conference, she offered representation.We did one more round of revisions before she submitted my manuscript to publishing houses in November of 2013.  I received the offer and contract from Sky Pony Press in November 2014!  Once revisions began with Sky Pony, one of the issues we worked on was how to show the “polite” conversation that adults had with other adults and children without it sounding stilted.  An author who writes wonderful MG and YA books set in Japan suggested using contractions when the young people talked with each other to make it more informal. 

Thank you so much for interviewing me, Carol. I’ve been reading your wonderful reviews and interviews with authors and I’m so excited to finally be one of them!

CAROL: My pleasure!

Kathleen Burkinshaw resides in Charlotte, NC. She’s a wife, mom, and owns a dog who is a kitchen ninja. For the past six years, she has visited middle schools to discuss her mother’s life in Hiroshima during the last year of WWII and her experience when the atomic bomb dropped on August 6^th. During this time, she wrote her debut Middle Grade historical fiction, THE LAST CHERRY BLOSSOM (Sky Pony Press August 2016). She has carried her mother’s story her whole life and feels privileged to now share it with the world. 

I will be giving away my THE LAST CHERRY BLOSSOM arc on July 28th. Leave me a comment on this post and I'll add your name to the list. If you're new to my blog, please include your email address. Leave me a comment on both posts, and you'll be entered twice! And if you don't win, you can order a copy here.