The Radium Girls: The Scary But True Story of the Poison That Made People Glow in the Dark was adapted for younger readers by Kate Moore from her bestselling novel The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women.
It tells the story of the wonder drug of the early 1900s, radium. It was thought to cure illnesses, and its luminescent properties made it ideal for glow-in-the-dark watches and for dials and instruments of pilots during WWI. To paint these devices, women would lick the brushes, dip them into the radium, paint, then repeat. The women did not know they were becoming sick with radium poisoning. Some did not show symptoms until years after they stopped working with the radium.
If you read the original version, you know it is detailed and includes timelines of multiple people. The version for a younger audience is written with age-appropriate content, but it is still incredibly detailed and more than 400 pages. The story shows these women as individuals, showing their separate lives, but also the strong, tight-knit group who fought for themselves and to ensure workplace safety for all.
This book is perfect for assigned reading for history or science classes.
This 200-word review was published on Philomathinphila.com on 9/1/20.
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This was a different take on other books set at this time, and I liked that about it very much. I haven’t read many books about those who managed to escape the Nazi regime and immigrate to safe countries before the Holocaust really began. But it’s no less saddening for that. Annalise desperately misses her parents, and life is so utterly different in the US.
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