Look Up!: The Story of the First Woman Astronomer by Robert Burleigh (review)

Burleigh introduces Henrietta Leavitt, a nineteenth-century woman determined to study astronomy at a time when “almost all astronomy teachers and students were men.” Although she graduated from college and secured a job in an observatory, Leavitt was confined to working with a group of other women doing calculations of star positions in photographs taken by male colleagues. Careful observations, however, led Leavitt to discover minute changes in the apparent brightness of certain stars over time, which in turn led to methods of determining how far a star is from Earth. This is a useful overview of a lesser-known scientific contributor, and Burleigh as usual writes with smooth clarity. The information is somewhat scanty, though (concluding notes mention that little is actually known about Levitt’s life), and the titular claim of Leavitt as “first woman astronomer” is tempered by mention of Caroline Herschel, born a century earlier, “who discovered eight comets.” Colón’s grainy, somewhat dreamy colored-pencil illustrations depict a rather somber-looking woman examining astral images that viewers can’t see, making the significance of her work difficult to understand for a young audience. This therefore falls considerably short of being inspirational, but it will help fill in the picture about women’s early contributions to the sciences. A collection of end matter includes quotes about the stars, brief notes about Leavitt’s life and discoveries and about other early female astronomers, a glossary, and a compact list of websites and titles for more exploration.