In 1930, young Venetia Burney and her classmates are following her teacher "Out of the classroom, down the hallways, and out the door... counting their steps from the sun, a circle drawn on their classroom blackboard." It is an exercise their teacher, Miss Claxton has designed to impress upon the girls the huge distances between the sun and the various planets in the solar system. The last two known planets, Uranus and Neptune are too far away to walk the distances.
Later however, Venetia and her friends map out the entire distance from the Sun to Uranus in a nearby park. The last planet, Neptune is a whopping 2.79 billion miles from the sun. Venetia wonders just how large the solar system is. Her Grandfather Madan, tries to answer the questions she asks of him at breakfast every morning. Besides learning about the planets, Venetia is also studying Greek and Roman mythology. Her great-uncle Henry Madan was responsible for naming the two moons orbiting Mars after the god of war's two sons Phobos and Deimos.
Then one day Venetia's grandfather read about the discovery of a new planet by the Lowell Observatory. The planet which was located even farther from the sun than Neptune did not yet have a name. But Venetia, with her vivid imagination had just the name in mind...
Discussion
Pluto is a mysterious planet in the Kuiper Belt that surrounds Neptune. Discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto is now classified as a dwarf planet, about half the size of the Earth's Moon and is believed to be a remnant of the creation of our solar system. You can learn more about Pluto from the National Geographic's Pluto 101 webpage.
Venetia Burney used her love of Greek and Roman legends and her belief that a planet so far from the sun would be similar to the underworld whom the Roman god Pluto ruled. Her grandfather who was a librarian with many astronomer friends sent this suggestion to Herbert Hall Turner, a professor at Oxford, who then forwarded the suggestion to the Lowell Observatory. For Venetia Burney, it was thrilling to have her suggestion chosen. The name Pluto became official on May 24, 1930. In 2007 on the eve of her eighty-ninth birthday, Venetia was able to view Pluto for the first time through a telescope at the Science Observatory at Hertsmonceux, England. Venetia Burney passed away at the age of ninety in 2009. In 2015, the robotic spacecraft, New Horizons reached Pluto and photographed the dwarf planet. A large crater on the planet was named after Burney.
McGinty's picture book provides readers with all the details of this interesting part of Pluto's history with a straightforward telling. The author includes a note at the back with more detail about Venetia Burney's life. Interestingly, Venetia grew up to be an accountant and married Maxwell Phair who studied classics - that is the culture and language of ancient Greece and Rome! A Selected Bibliography offers readers suggestions for learning more about Pluto and also how it was named. Elizabeth Haidle's accompanying illustrations were rendered in ink, graphite powder as well as digitally.
The Girl Who Named Pluto will be of special interest to those keen on astronomy. That an eleven-year-old girl could successfully name a planet demonstrates that even children can contribute in small but significant ways to science.
Book Details:
The Girl Who Named Pluto: The Story of Venetia Burney by Alice B. McGinty
New York: Schwartz & Wade Books 2019
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