Jeannine Atkins

Thoroughly researched and intimately imagined, this is a novel in verse about Lise Meitner, the Austrian physicist who discovered nuclear fission, a discovery that was used to create the atomic bomb during WWII. After a 30-year career in Berlin, Lise left under false papers in 1938, making her way to Sweden, and later, Cambridge, England.

Back matter: Author's note, timeline, biographical notes on friends and colleagues, selected bibliography

Quotes

What happens if you try to split the invisible?
...
Being almost invisible doesn't keep someone safe. (10)

...somebody has to go first to make things fair. (29)

Science is beautifully built on facts,
but some shift as knowledge grows....
What's hidden may have more power
than what we see. (55)

Someone else can decide how to use what she finds. (66)

She doesn't want to complain.
She was taught that a woman must appear
not to need money, food, or anger,
which can be part of ambition. (70)

It's foolish to try to blend in, to believe
one can swap hiding one's history for safety. (93)

I just wish people wouldn't make up things
and call them fact. (102)

Dictators hate science...
facts get in the way of their lies. (138)

Is there a difference between hate and fear? (171)

There's no point in calling ourselves scientists
if we don't tell the truth. (172)

Now that it seems almost impossible to get out, Lise knows she must. (184)

This land [Sweden] caught her from a fall,
but gratitude is a pulse, not solid ground. (201)

Once one person names something, it can be simple for others to see too. (216)

What use is the past if we don't let it teach us? (252)… (més)