Jellyfish Scientist: Maude Delap and Her Mesmerizing Medusas
- Publisher
- Charlesbridge
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2025
- Category
- Women, Zoology, Marine Life
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781623545819
- Publish Date
- Apr 2025
- List Price
- $22.99
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Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 7 to 10
- Grade: 2 to 5
Description
Meet scientist Maude Delap in this riveting STEM biography that details her biggest experiment—her observations of and research about jellyfish.
Maude scoops a jellyfish out of the water and embarks on more than a year of observation of the animal, accomplishing something countless other scientists were unable to do: trace the life cycle of a jellyfish and understand the creature’s metamorphosis from larva to adult.
Maude’s story must be told. Her painstaking observations of a compass jellyfish in 1899-1900 laid the foundation for research still ongoing today.
About the authors
Michelle Cusolito's profile page
Ellen Rooney is an award-winning designer, artist and children’s book illustrator. Her textural mixed media artwork combines many traditional art techniques, like pencil drawing, painting, printmaking and collage, often combined with digital techniques. She is the winner of the 2021 Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize for Grandmother School. Originally from Massachusetts, she now lives in the southern Okanagan Valley in British Columbia.
Editorial Reviews
Off the craggy coast of Ireland in 1899, self-taught scientist Maude Delap captures a jellyfish from her rowboat and embarks on an unprecedented scientific journey.
Like most girls and women in her community, Maude has never attended school. But her intrinsic curiosity ignites an interest in marine life on Valentia, the island where she lives. Jellyfish are difficult to raise in captivity, which makes studying them a challenge, but Maude isn’t deterred. She brings a worthy specimen to her makeshift home laboratory. Over the course of 10 months, the medusa—the term for an adult jellyfish—produces larvae, which become tiny polyps, then transform into pulsing ephyrae, fed and nurtured by Maude until one reaches adulthood (even devouring all the others!). Maude becomes the first person to raise a jellyfish in captivity, studying it throughout a complete life cycle. Detailed backmatter notes that Maude was well respected in the field, despite gender discrimination and her lack of education. Illustrations have a cut-paper feel, lending a cozy depth to each scene with overlapping colors and textures. Calming, muted oceanic hues evoke a foggy Irish coastline. Each unique jellyfish floats in delicate, translucent layers of creamy pink. Maude and her family are light-skinned. The captivating narrative occasionally addresses readers (“Whoa! Did you see that?”), balancing unfamiliar scientific terminology with an easy, conversational tone.
A compellingly told story of a quietly brilliant feminist figure.
—Kirkus Reviews
