The Five Sides of Marjorie Rice

How To Discover a Shape

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Candlewick Press

pub. 3.4.2025

48 pages

Grades 2 - 4

Author: Amy Alznauer

   Illustrator: Anna Bron

Character: Marjorie Rice

Overview:

"When Marjorie Rice was a little girl in Roseburg, Oregon, in the 1930s, she saw patterns everywhere. Swimming in the river, her body was a shape in the water, the water a shape in the hills, the hills a shape in the sky. Some shapes, fitted into a rectangle or floor tilings, were so beautiful they made her long to be an artist.

Marjorie dreamed of studying art and geometry, perhaps even solving the age-old “problem of five” (why pentagons don’t fit together the way shapes with three, four, or six sides do). But when college wasn’t possible, she pondered and explored all through secretarial school, marriage, and parenting five children, until one day, while reading her son’s copy of Scientific American, she learned that a subscriber had discovered a pentagon never seen before. If a reader could do it, couldn’t she?

Marjorie studied all the known pentagons, drew a little five-sided house, and kept pondering. She’d done it! And she’d go on to discover more pentagonal tilings and whole new classes of tessellations"

Tantalizing taste:

"Maybe it was math and art together or those two marvelous ideas - fitting and forever- but quiet, wonderstruck, earth-moving Marjorie was drawn in ... to a story that had begun eons before she was born ...

Marjorie had never gone to college. Her children knew more math than she did. But still, she couldn't help it. A beautiful, brave idea began to take shape in her mind.

'What if I could find still another type?'"

And something more: Amy Alznauer in the Author's Note explains: "Marjorie [made] a gentle trap for spiders... so she could safely carry them outside. Marjorie loved nature in general, but I imagine she must have felt a particular kinship with those small, eight-legged creatures in her home who, like her, spent much of their time quietly spinning shapes in secret."

We Sing from the Heart

How the Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Red Comet Press

pub. 10.15.2024

48 pages

Ages 8 - 12

Author: Mia Wenjen

   Illustrator: Victor Bizar Gómez

Character: Simon Tam and The Slants®

Overview:

"Music is a way to transcend cultures and divides. Simon Tam used his band's name, The Slants®, to make a powerful statement that racist insults could no longer be hurtful to Asian Americans.

But then the U.S. Trade and Patent Office tries to stop him. In his eight-year battle to win trademark protection, Simon would go all the way to the Supreme Court in a landmark case to rout out structural racism in our government systems.

Mia Wenjen takes us back to Simon's early days and the formation of the band, to the long battle to claim the name they chose to use. We learn of his motivations and the years-long struggle that leads ultimately to the Supreme Court of the United States."

Tantalizing taste:

"Simon realized that if he could show that the judicial system was racist, he could right a history of wrongs. He decided to fight for his rights - in court.

Fired up, Simon talked to Asian American leaders in his community and online. Everyone wanted him to keep fighting, so he went to court to make his case ...

Two thousand pages of support came pouring in but was not enough. Simon lost his case, but he refused to give up, and The Slants continued to perform."

And something more: In the back matter, author Mia Wenjen explains "I was one of the hundreds of Asian Americans who Simon Tam asked to write a letter of support for his case. I was struck by Simon's eloquence and determination to fight against an invisible form of racism - structural racism is our court systerm... I was struck by the fact that there have only been a handful of Asian American cases heard by the Supreme Court."

"In 2019, The Slants® officially retired from touring to focus on their nonprofit organization, The Slants Foundation. The band continues to compose music but no longer performs. The Slants Foundation provides mentorship and scholarships for Asian American artists who want to incorporate activism into their work: TheSlants.org."

As a prior intellectual property attorney, I admire the dedication, activism and persistence of Simon Tan, Mia Wenjen and many others who prevailed in righting this wrong.

Review of Magic in a Drop of Water

How Ruth Patrick Taught the World about Water Pollution

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Rocky Pond Books

(Penguin Random House)

pub. 3.25.2025

48 pages

Ages 6-9

Author: Julie Winterbottom

   Illustrator: Susan Reagan

Character: Ruth Patrick

Overview:

" A brilliant scientist and intrepid explorer, the ecologist Ruth Patrick taught the world how to care for the environment. She studied water pollution long before it became a public concern and gave other scientists the tools to do something about it.

Born in 1907, Ruth Patrick was one of the only women in her field when she made her breakthrough discovery about biodiversity and the ecosystem of rivers, forever changing how ecologists understand pollution."

Tantalizing taste:

"Jewel-like shapes

glided to and fro,

ovals made of beads,

circles filled with pearls,

shimmering stars and lacy triangles,

each one delicate as a snowflake.

Ruth was entranced.

What were these beautiful gems?

And what were they doing in the pond?

Ruth was looking at diatoms, microscopic algae that live in every body of water on Earth."

And something more: The More About Ruth Patrick explains: "At age one hundred, she was still donning her white pith helet and wading into streams to look for diatoms. She was still asking herself - and everyone she met - her favorite question: What have you learned today?"