Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 01/01/2025 This picture-book biography introduces Yvonne Clark, an African American mechanical engineer. Clark was a young tinkerer in the 1930s who liked taking things apart and fixing up things that had broken down. The action begins with her trying over and over to repair her family’s toaster and then moving on to other appliances—“Broken lamp? She screwed, rewired, and wrenched until . . .light! Wrecked radio? She twisted, switched, and hammered until . . . music!” and so on. Grown-up Clark and her engineering spark worked first at the Frankford Arsenal Gage Lab. After her male colleagues had given up, Yvonne determined why a new weapon kept jamming and came up with a working model. Then, when she joined NASA, she was the engineer who figured out how to eliminate confounding hot spots in the Saturn V rockets used for Apollo moon missions. Cheerful cartoon illustrations effectively convey Yvonne’s curiosity; there are concluding notes and references. Written by one of her former students at Tennessee State, this is an inspiring tribute to a woman who knew herself and followed her dreams. - Copyright 2025 Booklist.