BOOK 19#

Title - 'Anna's Extraordinary Experiments with Weather'

Publisher, Year, – Pratham books, 2018

Genre – Biography, Picture Book

Grade –  ^3rd

Theme – Science

Author - Nandita Jayaraj

Brief Biography

'Nandita Jayaraj' is a science communicator and co-founder of the feminist science media project The Life of Science. She travels to  various laboratories around India tracking the lives and research of the scientists who work in them. She has authored several children's books.Some of her works are 'The Louse's New House', 'Raju's First Flight' , 'Arya Cockpit' and '31 Fantastic Adventures in Science: Women Scientists in India'.

Nandita writes science-oriented storybooks and her aim is to raise awareness about Indian science and start conversations around gender equality in academia.

Synopsis

'Anna's Extraordinary Experiments with Weather' is a piece of creative non fiction around the life of Famous Indian Meteorologist Anna Mani. It traces the events in the life of Anna Mani from the time she was a little girl to when she became the Deputy Director General of Indian Meteorological Department.

Reading - Writing Strategies

Pre reading

• Have you ever heard of 'Anna Mani'
  
• Would you like to know who she is ?

During reading

• Anna got diamonds as a gift for her birthday ; do you also get gifts on your birthday?
  
• Anna doesn't look happy with her gifts , has it ever happened that you got gifts you didn't like?
• Do you recognize the other scientist in the picture?
• What is a laboratory? What are experiments?
• What is weather? Can you tell us about today's weather?
• Who is a meteorologist?

Post reading

• You can ask the students to find more about Meteorology by going to the library and using various resources there like Encyclopedias.
• You can also ask the Students to compile a list of  Famous Indian Scientists. And look for contributions made by other Woman scientists.
  

Reflection

'Anna's Extraordinary Experiments with Weather' is one of the very few stories that depict the life of an Indian Woman Scientist. The book shows Anna Mani as this quirky little girl , who is more interested in reading books than jewellery. The thought of having diamonds annoy her , until of course they are for experimenting.

Anna Mani' s character fall against a lot of gender stereotypes. In a country like ours where woman face casual sexism in their lives everyday , Anna Mani provides an example of what a woman can achieve if she has the freedom to what she wants. 

Sources-

https://storyweaver.org.in/stories/28270-anna-s-extraordinary-experiments-with-weather