The Fourteenth Goldfish

The Fourteenth Goldfish

-Jennifer Holm-

I received this eARC by Random House Children's through NetGalley. This is a middle-grade book, due to be released August 26, 2014

Let me start by saying I loved this book. From the cover, you can see a cute goldfish in a test tube. I was thinking, "Oh, a book about a goldfish. Maybe it will be like a Nemo book or something, were the protagonist is a fish and has an adventure." I tend to only read enough about a synopsis to know whether the book is in a genre I like. I like to go into books unawares of the situation.

I was pleasantly surprised this book had little to do with goldfish, and more about Science, family and future discoveries.

Jennifer did an amazing job weaving interesting details about great inventors, scientists and doctors through out this fictional story that made it even more memorable then weighed down by facts. 

This story starts off with a dead goldfish. The thirteenth goldfish to be exact. The goldfish is a metaphor for the cycle of life. Ellie the 12 year old protagonist in this story learns that her mom has been replacing Goldie, for the last 5 years with out Ellie knowing it. 

This quote from the book sums up the story, "Life is precious and we don't realize that at the time. But maybe life's also precious because it doesn't last forever".

Ellie learns that her grandfather may have found "the elixir of life" Through out the book, her grandfather convinces her that science is about the "possible" and that scientists are a stubborn bunch and that they never give up. When it comes time to patent grandpa Melvin's discovery, Ellie starts having second thoughts. She researches Oppenheimer "the father of the atomic bomb" yes his invention helped stop World War II, but what about the aftermath of that event? What about all the thousands of children that died because of the bomb. Ellie also researches Marie Curie, yes this famous physicist discovered radioactivity, but what was the aftermath? Marie Curie died from radiation poisoning. 

Just because something you invent or discover is amazing or cool or ingenious, doesn't mean it is good for people.

Jennifer quotes Jonas Salk in the book "Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors"

This book was heavy on family, science and the responsibility of our future and I really enjoyed it.