Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

This is the story that asks the question, “Can this girl, from a little mining town in the west, find happiness as the wife a wealthy and titled Englishman, Lord Henry Winthrop?”

Wrong story.  This story tells the tale of a little girl from Lake Woebegon, who moves away from the land of Norwegian bachelor farmers, to seek fame and fortune as a scientist in a Berkeley biology laboratory. 

This is a brilliantly inspirational book for any budding, young scientist.  In a quietly unassuming way, Hope interweaves her memoir (how she got there), with what being a scientist really is really all about, and this, interspersed with those personal perspectives, she tells us the story of earth-based plant life on this planet. 

The tri-theme is an accepted approach these days for authors.  It’s done in order to be considered by the broadest of readership markets.  In Hope’s case, and she’s done a great job of this, she’s blended the memoir category by every fifth chapter or so, including an early childhood remembrance of her mother or father.  She’s captured the novel segment, by mixing in her philosophical musings on what it takes to be a scientist [extreme devotion and boringly hard work], along with her predictably non-sex life, almost monastic life-style.  But getting back to inspirational, she paints this monastic picture akin to some sort of Nun’s biography, devoted to a passionate cause, a greater cause, and one, in the end, which supersedes thoughts of a big kitchen, lots of rug rats, the PTA and a bridge club.

I’ve been focused this past year, on books that I can strongly recommend for Sonoma County teens.  These have generally been for younger teens.  This is a book I recommend for middle to older teens.  The author, Hope, wrote it to inspire girls, but everything she says is equally relevant to boys, some of whom likewise feel alone, different, and more thoughtful than the others.  This is for any teen who is interested in learning.  It’s for those who recognize that they are passionate about a subject.

Doesn’t matter what the subject is, the subject will change over time.  If the passion to learn is burning, it will survive the wanting and getting more education.  This could lead possibly to a career in science, or the arts, or who knows, politics.