This book describes many things that are present in nature, and can be seen as "extreme". Donna Jackson describes disasters such as hurricanes and the affects they have, caves and what lies inside, such as treasures, types of rocks, and the darkness. It also describes forests, particularly Redwoods, and what lies within. Jackson talks about what happens in these places and during these events, the causes, the hazards, and the aftermath as well. It also talked about the people involved in these events and disasters and how they help treat and plan, as well as are involved with, and how they help deal with and solve the aftermath of the event and disasters. ( )

"Extreme Scientists" takes an in depth look at 3 different types of extreme scientists: hurricane hunters, a miner, and what they refer to as a "skywalker." I enjoyed reading about the hurricane hunters the most, especially with all of the recent hurricanes taking place. It is a career that I know I didn't know much about, and it's likely that students - especially in the Pacific North West - also don't know much about the profession. I think that this book would be a great one to have for students to read as it goes into detail about some unusual and scientific careers that could spark their own interests. However, I was hoping that there would be more than just 3 careers hi lighted, but the book was very thorough with the three that it did examine. ( )

Description:
This book features three "extreme scientists" including a "hurricane hunter," a "cave woman" miner, and a "skywalker" who scales redwoods. Each section includes biographical information on the scientist and what crazy feats they do daily as a part of their job. Each section also includes a "Quick Questions" section at the end where the featured scientists answer commonly asked questions. The end of the book contains a glossary of terms that is specific to each scientist.

Personal reaction:
The sections of this book may be too long to share as a whole class, but I think this is a great resource to have for students to research different careers in science. I think it is powerful to see that one of the three scientists featured in this book is a woman. As a child, I would have felt encouraged and inspired by the fact that someone who was like me grew up to do such a cool job as a scientist. I also like how this book shows the reader how diverse the world of science is.

Keywords/topics:
careers in science, storms, meteorologist, speleologist, botanist

A couple of uses:
- I would introduce this book to students in my class as a way to help them see how diverse the world of science is. Before reading this book, I hardly realized the professions of these scientists even existed. Sharing this book with my class would inspire them to open their mind to the many possibilities there are as a scientist.
- In a unit on storms, students who are focusing on hurricanes could use this book to learn more about how hurricanes are tracked. The information in this book on hurricanes would be valuable to the student researcher as it includes first hand accounts and pictures of a man who actually chases hurricanes for a living. ( )

This could definitely be a book that I would take into my classroom to spend even just 20 minutes looking at an overview of the scientists in each chapter and showing the amazing photography as an inspiration. With Biology being a subject that is used in high-stakes EOC testing in Louisiana, it can be difficult to find time for anything but test curriculum because we want our students to do as best as they possibly can on them. This is fine, but we also really need to spend some time showing them the kinds of things that they can actually go out and do with a biology degree.
I wish Donna Jackson had just found two more of the amazing photographs to put on the endpages. These were completely bare when the rest of the book is so well decorated. The rest of the access features are great though, with the end of chapter interviews really hitting some of points home about how passionate these researchers are. The photographs really bring all of this to life and show students that there are real people doing these amazing things and that they can too. The third person tone is very common for science writing, but the frequent interjections of dialogue help personalize it a little bit. Donna Jackson did an excellent job at pulling together the information from these amazing scientists, and her Master's in Journalism certainly adds credibility and professionalism to her interviews. ( )

This book gives biographies of several extreme scientists who use their love of science to work incredible jobs. I would love to share this book with my students to inspire them to think out of the box and see that what we are learning now can lead to great things in the future. This book might help students see jobs that they otherwise didn't know existed!