The girl who built an ocean An artist, an argonaut, and the true story of the world's first aquarium

Born in 1794, Jeanne Villepreux-Power grew up watching her father transform leather into shoes, and her mother create beautiful gowns. Jeanne worked as a dressmaker in Paris as a young woman, but after marrying a wealthy man and moving to Sicily, she became fascinated by the Mediterranean and its sea animals. Frustrated that she could not watch them within their habitats, she invented the first aquarium. Her observations and drawings of young argonauts growing from eggs in her aquarium challenged the accepted theory that these small octopuses used shells from other creatures, as hermit crabs do. Though in her lifetime her research was often dismissed by the male-dominated nineteenth-century scientific community, the significance of her work is widely recognized today. Nutter's colorful, digital pictures illustrate Villepreux-Power's story and her times in an appealing way. Like Keating's previous picture-book biographies, Shark Lady (2017) and Ocean Speaks (2020), which introduce shark scientist Eugenie Clark and seafloor cartographer Marie Tharp, the book offers an interesting, accessible narrative tracing the life story of a woman who made a contribution to science.

This aquatic biography foregrounds the inventiveness of 19th-century seamstress-turned-scientist Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794--1871). The figure has a successful career dressmaking for socialites in France, but after a move to Sicily, her focus shifts to the Mediterranean's "enchanting world of saltwater and sand," where her fascination motivates her to develop glass aquariums to aid her study. Keating draws a clear line between Villepreux-Power's two occupations: "Chiffon and taffeta shifted into the foam at her feet as she walked in the sand. Pearls and sequins echoed the dappled sunlight on the horizon." When Villepreux-Power's observations show that female argonauts grow, rather than find, their shells, text skips the science to emphasize the marine animal's kindred gift for creation. Mee Nutter's smooth, animation-style digital art highlights the protagonist's curiosity with scenes of her at work amid specimen-filled environments. Back matter includes an author's note and timeline. Ages 4--8. (Oct.)

Science and fashion meet in this portrait of a 19th-century seamstress whose fascination with ocean life led both to multiple discoveries and to the invention of the glass-sided aquarium. In the wake of Ocean Speaks (2020), illustrated by Katie Hickey, a profile of pioneering oceanographer Marie Tharp, Keating introduces another woman in marine science who was strong minded enough to torpedo sexist expectations. Folding lyrical touches into her measured account, the author follows Jeanne Villepreux as she learns how to use her hands to "transform a pile of nothing into a beautiful…something" in her parents' dressmaking shop, then goes on to a successful career making high-society gowns in Paris before a move to Sicily (with "her fabric, her scissors, and her new husband") sparks a second career studying the wildlife in the nearby shallows. Frustrated by the challenge of getting her specimens to hold still while she draws them, she constructs a waterproof glass box--and so becomes the first to discover that argonauts, a type of octopus, don't steal their delicate shells from other creatures as was widely supposed but manufacture them, likewise "transforming what appeared to be nothing…into a beautiful something." Nutter's appropriately flowing illustrations take their smiling, self-possessed subject from ball gowns and formal dances to sandy beaches and work benches. Villepreux herself is White; montage sequences of colleagues worldwide receiving news of her discoveries feature both White and dark-skinned naturalists, including several other women. An afterword with a timeline fills in further detail about both the inventor and her eight-armed subjects. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A STEM-winder's delight, awash in affirmation and the joy of discovery. (Picture-book biography. 7-10) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.