Marie Curie · Little questions, big discoveries

ZENA MEETS

Marie Curie

Little questions, big discoveries

Written by Zen Bloom
Art direction by Rowan Vale

A little book to read together.
Turn the page and come along!

Book 01 in the ZenBloomBooks collection

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Hello, little explorer!

Zena is our storybook guide. She dresses up and acts out ideas from this real person’s life.

The girl in these pictures is Zena. The story is about Marie Curie.

Read. Point. Wonder. Play.

MEET THE REAL PERSON

Marie Curie

Marie Curie loved learning. She grew up in Poland and went to Paris to study. With other scientists, she discovered two new elements, polonium and radium. She won two Nobel Prizes and helped bring X-rays to doctors during the First World War.

Zena reads a large picture book at a small wooden desk in a simple sunny room, two books stacked beside her, a little green plant by the window

A girl loved books and school.

Each page could be a tool.

She read and learned and grew.

There was so much to do.

Zena carries her books beside a simple Paris university doorway, with a tiny distant Eiffel Tower silhouette

She went away to learn.

It soon would be her turn.

With books held close and tight,

She worked by day and night.

Zena and one friendly child teammate compare a notebook and a simple balance scale on a tidy pretend research desk

She found a friend who knew

That questions matter, too.

They worked as one small team

To test a big new dream.

Zena looks carefully at an ordinary dark rock through a large magnifying glass beside a simple unlabelled measuring instrument

Some rocks held clues inside.

What else could they hide?

With tools to test and see,

She asked what they could be.

Zena sorts three ordinary rocks into wooden trays and records observations in a notebook

She checked each little thing.

What news would testing bring?

She sorted, weighed and tried.

More clues were tucked inside.

Zena points proudly to two simple different-coloured element cards on her desk, beside two ordinary stones

Two new elements were found.

In rocks dug from the ground.

Each had a name to say.

New knowledge led the way.

The work took years to do.

Each test gave one more clue.

She wrote what she could see.

How careful she could be!

Zena smiles beside two plain round golden prize medals hanging on a stand

Two prizes came her way.

For work she did each day.

She showed what minds could do.

With questions, old and new.

Zena stands beside a simple cream mobile X-ray van, with a large original bone-outline diagram visible on a board and a friendly adult doctor nearby

She helped take X-rays, too.

To help the doctors view

The bones they could not see.

How useful that could be!

Zena and a child friend test a large horseshoe magnet above two paper clips at a craft table

A question starts a quest.

Try looking, then a test.

With help and time to play,

What might you learn today?

Look again

Find the rock.

Find the magnifying glass.

What could a tool show

that eyes cannot see?

Zena stands with open hands, inviting you to try an activity, in a science laboratory.

Have a go

With a grown-up, try

a big fridge magnet.

What will it pick up?

Keep tiny things out of mouths.

Tell the story

Who helped with the work?

Think back to the teammates.

What can you find out

with someone else?

Zena sits cross-legged and thinks about a question, in a science laboratory.

A little wonder

An element is one kind

of basic material.

Gold is an element, too.

Where have you seen gold?

FOR GROWN-UPS

A real life, a first little story

Marie Curie lived from 1867 to 1934. She was born in Warsaw and studied in Paris.
Marie and Pierre Curie identified polonium and radium in 1898. Radioactivity had already been discovered by Henri Becquerel.
She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, and won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
During the First World War, she helped organise mobile X-ray services. The ordinary rocks and pretend instruments in Zena's pictures are story props, not instructions for experiments.

This book simplifies a longer life. Zena’s play, friends and props illustrate ideas; they do not reconstruct particular childhood events.

Read slowly. Leave time for questions. Adapt the activities to your child.

Keep discovering

Original text and illustrations for ZenBloomBooks.

Choose another adventure

Written by Zen Bloom
Art direction by Rowan Vale

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