The Fossil Whisperer: How Wendy Sloboda Discovered a Dinosaur by Helaine Becker

Wendy loved hunting through hills and gullies for unusual things like rocks, birds, burrs and bird feathers. She also loved to take pictures of her finds with her camera.

During a class field trip to the badlands near her home in Alberta, twelve-year-old Wendy discovered a piece of fossilized coral.  Her teacher explained that "Millions of years ago, this land was the Western Interior Seaway - an underwater world teeming with marine life." 

Wendy was intrigued by the information a fossil could provide about the past and so she began hunting for fossils in earnst. Her favourite place to hunt for fossils was Devil's Coulee, part of the badlands. Soon she was finding many fossils. 

When she was seventeen, Wendy made an rare find - a fossilized dinosaur eggshell. This discovery brought paleontologists to Devil's Coulee to explore for more fossils and they found them: more fossilized dinosaur eggs from Hypacrosaurus. Even more  important was the discovery of dinosaur embryos in the fossilized eggs!

These discoveries led to Wendy working at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology and traveling the world to find fossils in other countries, including Greenland and Mongolia.

Wendy continued to hunt for fossils in Alberta, uncovering the fossil of a unique horned dinosaur. Because the rest of the fossilized remains of the dinosaur were buried deep, it took four years to excavate and extract the bones. Paleontologists were able to determine that this was the remains of a new horned dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous. The dinosaur was named after Wendy, Wendiceratops pinhorensis. Meanwhile, Wendy continues to find fossils.

Discussion

Wendy Sloboda is a Canadian fossil hunter who has made many significant fossil discoveries over the past few decades that have led to a great understanding of dinosaurs. Born in Warner, Alberta, Sloboda found her first significant fossil in 1987 as a teenager. This discovery was of fossil eggshells, as described in Becker's picture book that led scientists to discover several nests of duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurs. Other notable finds include a fossilized turtle containing eggs, the footprint of a new ichnospecies of dinosaur, as well as her discovery of a new species of horned dinosaur which was named in her honour.

Becker's detailed account of Slobada's contributions to paleontology includes some information on the types of animals that populated the Western Interior Seaway, and explanations as to why the discovery of the  Hypacrosaurus embryos was so significant. Becker's research for the book included interviewing Wendy Sloboda.

Telling Wendy Sloboda's story in picture book format does make her contributions accessible to younger readers but photographs of locations and of Wendy would have been nice additions to the book. A map showing Wendy's hometown, the location of the Alberta badlands (including some photographs of this unusual landform) her discoveries would also be helpful. Sandra Dumais' colourful digital illustrations round out the story.

Included in the back matter are several pages with information about the real Wendy, How to Be a Fossil Hunter, Alberta's Amazing Bone Beds (a picture of the Alberta badlands would have done nicely here), How Are Fossils Formed?, About Wendiceratops, a Glossary and where to find more information.

The Fossil Whisperer will help inspire a new generation of girls to consider geology and paleontology as potential career options. Wendy Sloboda's life demonstrates that a childhood interest can develop into a life-long career.

Book Details:

The Fossil Whisperer: How Wendy Sloboda Discovered a Dinosaur by Helaine Becker
Toronto: Kids Can Press      2022

Lines, Bars and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs by Helaine Becker

Lines, Bars and Circles tells the story of the eccentric William Playfair. 

William Playfair was a dreamer with an annoying sense of humor. When his father died, Will's education was taken over by his older brother John who moved back to the family home near Dundee, Scotland. William liked to play practical jokes, but with John as his teacher he soon became and excellent mathematician like his brother.

A dreamer, Will found himself restless and left home when he was fourteen with the intention of making his fortune. He found a job with Andrew Meikle, an inventor. But he left this job after a few years to become an assistant to James Watt.

This new position inspired William to try to dream up his own inventions, but this made him make mistakes on the job.He soon left Watt and decided to start his own business using a machine he developed. This machine made objects out of silver and William opened a shop to sell them. The shop failed.

Undeterred, William tried many different ventures, writing, making cannon parts for the British army and starting a bank. Sometimes his schemes got him in to trouble with the law.

In spite of all this, William continued writing and his books earned him a living. For one of those books, he needed something to show the information he was trying to portray. He created the first line graph to do this. The line graph made it easier to see what the data. King Louis XVI was impressed by Williams graphs and he rewarded him with a royal permit.William wanted to use this permit to "build a steam-powered rolling mill that would manufacture all kinds of objects out of steel." But before he could do this, Louis was overthrown.

Because of his bad reputation, scientists refused to endorse William's graphs. Instead, it would be almost one hundred years before they were rediscovered.

Discussion

Lines, Bars and Circles gives readers a fun and engaging treatment of the life of William Playfair who is credited with developing line and bar graphs as well as the pie chart. Illustrator Marie-Eve Tremblay's digitally created artwork adds humour to this telling of what might be a somewhat dry subject for children.

William was born on September 22, 1759 to Reverend James Playfair, a minister in Liff, Scotland. His father died in 1772 when William was twelve-years-old. This meant his older brother John had to care for William and his younger and older brothers. John would go on to become a respected scientist,  Professor of Natural Philosophy, Mathematics and Geology at Edinburgh University. 

After completing his schooling, William undertook an apprenticeship with the inventor of the threshing machine, Andrew Meikle. He then became the personal assistant and draftsman for the illustrious James Watt at Boulton & Watt in Birmingham in 1777. After this, William began the first of several business ventures over the years, most of which, would fail. 

In 1787, he moved to France to try to make his fortune there. He was involved in numerous "adventures" in revolutionary Paris, eventually fleeing France for Germany in 1791. He returned to London where he started a bank which also failed. William then earned his living as a political and economic writer. It was in these writings that he began to make his points with the use of line graphs and bar charts. These illustrations had never been used before. His Commercial and Political Atlas, published in 1786 was the first demonstration of these new techniques. The first pie charts were used in his 1801 Statistical Breviary.

As Becker writes in her note on William Playfair, "More About William and His Charts", William's ideas were lost for almost a hundred years partly because of his reputation as a "scoundrel". During the time period he lived, a person's reputation was very important and William's was not good. Becker's light-hearted text along with Tremblay's modern, funny illustrations make for an interesting read. 

Lines, Bars and Circles is a welcome addition to a suite of picture books that have been written in the last few years on mathematical concepts. This picture book could be used to give students some context to one of the most important mathematical tools we use today to portray data in an understandable form. It's helpful for students to understand how specific mathematical tools such as line graphs and pie charts were developed. Even better if it is done in a way that makes math fun!

Book Details:

Lines, Bars and Circles by Helaine Becker
Toronto: Kids Can Press   2017

Pirate Queen: A Story of Zheng Yi Sao by Helaine Becker

Sitting combing her hair, a young woman doesn't realize that pirates are maurading through the city, smashing windows, looting and killing. Their captain, Zheng Yi has sent his men to seize young women for the pirates to marry. The women were carried back to the ships, their pleas for help ignored.

While the other girls cried and were terror-stricken, this young woman saw an opportunity.  She refused to marry Zheng Yi unless he gave her an equal share in his business. He agreed. Within six years Zheng Yi Sao's husband was dead and she quickly took command of Zheng Yi's pirate fleet. No one challenged her, not even her late husband's lieutenant, Zhang Bao.

Zheng Yi Sao was now in command of more than eighteen hundred ships and seventy-thousand men! To cement her authority over the pirates, Zheng formed a council out of her squadron leaders and soon they ruled the entire South China Sea.

So feared were the pirates that towns gave their money to Zheng Yi's pirates and her power grew. She was able to pay workers in every town to supply her ships.

Eventually she became even more powerful than the emperor, so he sent his armada to destroy her. But Zheng Yi's Red Flag Fleet destroyed sixty-three of his ships. Attempting to starve out the pirates also did not work.

The emperor then enlisted the help of the British, Dutch and Portuguese also without success. But Zheng Yi grew tired of a pirate's life and the knowledge that there was a price on her head.

So she sailed into Canton's port on a gunboat, along with the wives and children of her crew and offered to surrender most of her ships in exchange for their freedom. At first the governor-general refused but then changed his mind. And so Zheng Yi Sao retired from her pirate ways, a wealthy and free woman.

Discussion

Zheng Yi Sao was a real pirate who ruled the South China Sea. Some details of her story remain vague and unverified but the general story of her life is well known. In 1801, Zheng Wenxian was a powerful Chinese pirate, commander of the Red Flag Fleet that had been operating throughout the South China Sea. It is believed he had heard about Shi Xianggu, a prostitute in a floating brothel who had a reputation for being an astute businesswoman. She used the secrets she learned from her clients to further her own interests. Such a woman interested Zheng and set out to secure her, although it's not known for sure if she was kidnapped or if he met her and simply proposed to her. She married him on the condition that he share control of the pirate fleet with her. He agreed. Upon his untimely death however, Zheng's adopted son, Cheung Po Tsai was slated to take over the fleet. So Zheng Yi Sao married Cheung Po and gained control of the fleet.

After marauding the South China Sea for three years, Zheng Yi Sao finally decided to surrender and accept the Qing dynasty's offer of amnesty in 1810. It was likely a combination of constant harassment by the Chinese government to bring down the pirates as well as their own internal strife that influenced her decision.

Helaine Becker tells Zheng Yi Sao's story in a short,straightforward way, alongside Liz Wong's colourful illustrations, reminiscent of the Chinese traditional painting. The story is unique, and while Becker has left out some of the more spicy aspects of the pirate queen's life, the main message is that of a capable, savvy and intelligent woman holding her own in a very male dominated era. The author has included an Author's Note about the pirate queen and also notes on her sources and and offering of further resources to read.

Book Details:

Pirate Queen: A Story of Zheng Yi Sao by Helaine Becker
Toronto: Groundwood Books    2020