bookheaven | She Persisted: Sally Ride

She Persisted: Sally Ride by Atia Abawi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When a prompt about women astronauts hit my reading challenge I ran to the library and interlibrary loaned this. However, not having children I didn't know the arcane system of how they list things meant this was middle grade (barely, it skews very young) But since the library expended money and time to get me this I read it in spite of being vastly too old for the demographic.

But that hardly matters. Sally Ride was my hero in college. When my medical school entrance interviewers asked me who was my hero I said Sally, much to their obvious disappointment I didn't choose some man. And that is why this series of She Persisted books are so important. You can't become what you can't see and as I'm typing this the American government is actively removing women's names/accomplishments from web pages and museums where we aren't wanted.

Sally Ride faced that in her career in science as I did in my own fifteen years after her. This is of course a very light treatment of Sally's accomplishments and life because of the young age group it's aimed at but it doesn't shy away from the fact that Sally faced down misogyny often using her own words from interviews. Sally had multiple degrees in science, including physics which made her a prime candidate to be an astronaut. She was athletic. And sadly she died relatively young.

This is a great book for the middle grade crowd and hopefully has a place in many school libraries.

View all my reviews