Story of a man who had the courage to ask questions.

Acclaimed author-illustrator Bonnie Christensen adopts the voice of Galileo and lets him tell his own tale in this outstanding picture book biography. The first person narration gives this book a friendly, personal feel that makes Galileo's remarkable achievements and ideas completely accessible to young readers. And Christensen's artwork glows with the light of the stars he studied. Galileo's contributions were so numerous—the telescope! the microscope!—and his ideas so world-changing—the sun-centric solar system!—that Albert Einstein called him "the father of modern science." But in his own time he was branded a heretic and imprisoned in his home. He was a man who insisted on his right to pursue the truth, no matter what the cost—making his life as interesting and instructive as his ideas.

Many of the things you know about science began with Archimedes. What was so unusual about a man who spent almost his whole life on one small island, more than two thousand years ago? Many things about Archimedes were unusual. His mind was never still, but was always searching for something that could be added to the sum of things that were known in the world. No fact was unimportant; no problem was dull. Archimedes worked not only in his mind, but he also performed scientific experiments to gain knowledge and prove his ideas.

We know about Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. But we owe nearly as much to Galen, a physician born in 129 A.D. at the height of the Roman Empire. Galen's acute diagnoses of patients, botanical wisdom, and studies of physiology were recorded in numerous books, handed down through the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Not least, Galen passed on the medical tradition of respect for life. In this fascinating biography for young people, Jeanne Bendick brings Galen's Roman world to life with the clarity, humor, and outstanding content we enjoyed in Archimedes and the Door to Science. An excellent addition to the home, school and to libraries. Illustrated by the Author.

Because of Galileo's courageous campaign to change the methods of doing science, physicist Albert Einstein called him "the father of modern physics--indeed, of modern science altogether." A devout Catholic who wanted the church to maintain its authority and wisdom, Galileo worked tirelessly to persuade the church authorities to stop insisting that the sun revolved around a stationary earth, when there was evidence to prove otherwise. Galileo's persistence led to the Inquisition trying and sentencing him for heresy in 1633.

Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics- indeed of modern science altogether." Galileo's Daughter also presents a stunning portrait of a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me." Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was about to be overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Dava Sobel's previous book Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story

“Demonstrates an awesome command of the vast Galileo literature . . . [Wootton] excels in boldly speculating about Galileo’s motives” (The New York Times Book Review). Tackling Galileo as astronomer, engineer, and author, David Wootton places him at the center of Renaissance culture. He traces Galileo through his early rebellious years; the beginnings of his scientific career constructing a “new physics”; his move to Florence seeking money, status, and greater freedom to attack intellectual orthodoxies; his trial for heresy and narrow escape from torture; and his house arrest and physical (though not intellectual) decline. Wootton also reveals much that is new—from Galileo’s premature Copernicanism to a previously unrecognized illegitimate daughter—and, controversially, rejects the long-established belief that Galileo was a good Catholic. Absolutely central to Galileo’s significance—and to science more broadly—is the telescope, the potential of which Galileo was the first to grasp. Wootton makes clear that it totally revolutionized and galvanized scientific endeavor to discover new and previously unimagined facts. Drawing extensively on Galileo’s voluminous letters, many of which were self-censored and sly, this is an original, arresting, and highly readable biography of a difficult, remarkable Renaissance genius. Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in the Astronautics and Astronomy Category “Fascinating reading . . . With this highly adventurous portrayal of Galileo’s inner world, Wootton assures himself a high rank among the most radical recent Galileo interpreters . . . Undoubtedly Wootton makes an important contribution to Galileo scholarship.” —America magazine “Wootton’s biography . . . is engagingly written and offers fresh insights into Galileo’s intellectual development.” —Standpoint magazine