Booklist Reviews 2020 July #1

*Starred Review* When radium was discovered as a cancer treatment in the early 1900s, it launched a craze for this miracle element that saw it added to expensive health tonics, ointments, and more. Thus, when the Radium Dial Company opened its doors in New Jersey, giving young working women—most in their teens and early twenties—the opportunity to handle the glamorous substance as dial-painters, meticulously applying luminous radium paint to watch faces, it was welcomed as a boon to the community. In this young readers' edition of her popular adult book, Moore rivetingly sketches the creeping nightmare that was radium poisoning as it worked its way through the women of the U.S. Radium Corporation and the Radium Dial Company, disintegrating their bones and giving them a ghostly (radioactive) glow. She tells this story through the stories of several of the women who were dial-painters, relaying not only their strength of spirit while enduring the pain of their illness but also how they took on the companies that knowingly exposed them to such dangerous work—and lied in the name of profit. A larger narrative of workplace safety and accountability emerges from the wreckage of the radium girls' lives that continues to protect people today. News clippings and period photos enhance the thoroughly sourced text, but it's Moore's personal, captivating prose that renders this shining piece of history unforgettable.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020 Grades 4-8. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.