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Title details for The Lady and the Octopus by Danna Staaf - Available

The Lady and the Octopus

How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology

by Danna Staaf
Suzie Althens
Audiobook
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"Jeanne Villepreux-Power was never expected to be a scientist. Born in 1794 in a French village more than 100 miles from the ocean, she pursued an improbable path that brought her to the island of Sicily. There, she took up natural history and solved the two-thousand-year-old mystery of how the argonaut octopus gets its shell. In an era when most research focused on dead specimens, Jeanne was determined to experiment on living animals. And to keep sea creatures alive for her studies, she had to invent a contraption to hold them: the aquarium. Her remarkable life story is told by author, marine biologist, and octopus enthusiast Danna Staaf."

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 4, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781666616477
      • File size: 130906 KB
      • Duration: 04:32:43

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 1220
    • Text Difficulty: 9-12

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 24, 2022
      Staaf pays thorough tribute to Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794–1871), credited with inventing the aquarium while researching sea life off Sicily’s coast. The French native combined a keen interest in the natural world with artistic and engineering skills—and freedoms afforded by wealth—to study sea creatures, primarily the argonaut octopus. “Jeanne’s overarching question: Is the argonaut a builder or a thief?” She settled the question—builder—while helping move her field forward by creating the aquarium to study aquatic animals in their natural environment. When recorded history is lacking, Staaf offers educated suppositions and provoking questions. Highly detailed, conversational chapters feature archival material, scientific drawings, and full-color photos in a handsome layout, and numerous contextualizing sidebars cover topics ranging from the ethics of animal experimentation to the metric system. Ample back matter concludes a comprehensive portrait of a trend-bucking innovator and polymath. Ages 10–up.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Suzie Althens brings an upbeat sense of wonder to the story of unlikely scientist Jeanne Villepreux-Power. Born in a remote French village during the French Revolution, Villepreux-Power went to Paris with her dressmaking skills and natural curiosity, and eventually to Sicily, where she would become a groundbreaking marine biologist and pioneer of aquariums. Althens evokes the bright self-confidence of Villepreux-Power, who steadfastly championed her right to be known for her scientific discoveries and inventions. Althens walks listeners through the complexities of octopus biology and scientific experimentation with clarity, making the tongue-twisting terminology easy to follow. Althens shines in the direct quotes from Villepreux-Power's journals, breathing life into this little known woman who was avidly interested in the world around her. N.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:1220
  • Text Difficulty:9-12

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