Santiago Saw Things Differently

September 1, 2023
Grades 1-4 As a child, Santiago expressed himself through art, using charcoal and chalk to draw pictures on doors and walls in his Spanish village. His father, a doctor, expected Santiago to set his artistic ambitions aside and study medicine. But as the narrative emphasizes, "Santiago saw things differently." While following the educational path demanded by his father, he found ways of making it his own. He saw beauty inside the human body and became an anatomy professor in 1883. Looking through a microscope, he drew pictures showing that neurons (previously considered a tangled web) are individual cells with treelike forms and observable stages of growth. His drawings and conclusions provided the basis of neuroscience. Iverson credits the man's early artistic inclination for his accomplishments as a scientist whose observations led to logical conclusions. Reproductions of Ram�n y Cajal's drawings appear on relevant pages of the book, alongside Lozano's handsome digital illustrations, which feature expressive line drawings brightened with solid colors and occasional patterns. A picture book showing the value of the A in the STEAM field.

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September 15, 2023
An introduction to Santiago Ram�n y Cajal, an artist and medical researcher who made a crucial discovery about how our nervous systems work. Iverson drafts a portrait of a visionary Spanish scientist who, compulsively drawing and painting from childhood on but compelled by his father to study medicine, was therefore well equipped to see patterns in networks of neurons and axons that others could not. He described and depicted them well enough to change scientific thinking on the way to earning a Nobel Prize in 1906. Lozano incorporates numerous examples of his subject's actual artwork into scenes of a determined-looking lad in short pants finding ways to make art (with pen, brush, and, later, a camera) in the face of opposition from both his father and his teachers. Later, as an adult, he translated images seen through a microscope into complex but lucid arrangements of cells and connections. Along with more information about nerve cells' structures and functions, the author offers readers further details about the life and accomplishments of, as she dubs him, the "Father of Neuroscience," in an afterword--including an amusing anecdote about how his co-Nobelist, Camillo Golgi, spent most of his acceptance speech at the ceremony arguing that his colleague's theories were wrong. Some nerve! Brightly illuminates a brilliant and multitalented yet unjustly obscure scientist. (bibliography, photographs) (Picture-book biography. 9-12)

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 25, 2023
Born in Spain, Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934) was the son of a doctor who wanted him to be one, too. But the boy, an artist at heart, was regularly locked into rooms for drawing in his schoolbooks. When he and his father slipped into a graveyard at night to study bones, he discovered one place where art intersects with medicine: “He saw the human body as a work of art.” Obtaining a microscope, he began to draw nerve fibers in the brain, his drafting ability allowing him to follow intricate networks of what looked like “trunks, branches, and leaves.” But they never grow together, he realized; instead, they transmit messages across the gaps between them. For his work demystifying the nervous system, he won the Nobel Prize. Iverson writes with delicacy, evoking childhood moments that were formative for Santiago: “The room was lit by a wisp of light... just enough light for drawing.” Illustrations in an antiqued palette of coppers and grays by Lozano (Mayhem at the Museum) have a stylized cartoon quality, portraying the young protagonist as doll-like with an upturned nose. Several of Cajal’s original drawings are included; back matter concludes. Ages 5–9.

July 1, 2023
This picture-book biography of Spain's first scientific Nobel Prize winner, Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852�? 1934), moves from his imagination-filled childhood in the mountain village of Petilla to his groundbreaking discovery of the structure of the nervous system at the age of thirty-six. Readers will be delighted by the snapshots of a self-willed, precocious, inventive young boy who bucked his teachers' attempts to clip his artist's wings, and initially resisted following in his doctor-father's footsteps, only to fall in love with the field of neuroanatomy on his own terms. Lozano's stylized digital illustrations are interspersed with fascinating facsimiles of Ramon y Cajal's photography, paintings, and medical drawings. Back matter delves into the anatomy of a neuron and expounds on Ramon y Cajal's life and works. A compelling testament to the value of unconventional thinking.

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from March 29, 2024

Gr 1-3-In the mountains of Spain, in his grandfather's shop, Santiago Ram�n y Cajal as a boy didn't see dust motes flying into the breeze, but elements that "sparkled and soared in a kaleidoscope of motion." Determining that their son and his insistence on drawing everything at every moment did not have art in his future, his parents directed him to a study of medicine. For readers expecting this stubborn, talented person to break free of this directive, a plot twist: the boy went on to study the fibers and paths of the brain and became the founder of neuroscience. Through his drawings, he found the patterns and structures that made it possible for others to heal brains. He won the Nobel Prize for this work, sharing the stage with another who openly disparaged and remained skeptical of his work. Ram�n y Cajal not only saw things differently, but he allowed others to see, too, and changed the course of medicine. The illustrations are almost na�ve at first, in the straight lines and round heads of children's cartoon characters. In a muted palette of slate blues and goldenrod, with bursts of salmon and mint green, the artwork gives way to a more realistic, natural look that conveys a sense of history. And then, with the overlay of Ram�n y Cajal's own work, the contrast is splendid. The drawings of cells, neural paths, and fibers are perfect to pore over. Author's note and references consulted are included in the back matter. VERDICT Whether for the art shelves or the science collection, this biography cannot go deep, but it covers the surface events of Santiago Ram�n y Cajal's journey in a way that is breathtaking, unbelievable, and inspiring.-Kimberly Olson Fakih

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