Week of 2/20

This week in the library we are celebrating Black History month with two awesome books about contemporary African Americans. Mae Jemison dreamed about going to space as a child. But her teacher told her she should probably become a nurse instead. Mae’s parents kept encouraging her and Mae chose to become a doctor first, then an astronaut! In 1992, Mae was the first African American woman in space. Lonnie Johnson was always tinkering and building things as a child. He even built a robot that ran on compressed air and won first place at the state science fair. But he was also told he wouldn’t be suited to engineering. Just like Mae, Lonnie proved that wrong and became a NASA engineer and then the inventor of the Super Soaker water gun in 1990! Both Mae and Lonnie lived their dreams and became what they knew they could. Black History is American history and we all benefit from learning about these inspiring people.