Andrea White: Radiant Girl

Gospody – Lord.

Hiroshima – City in Japan where the atomic bomb was dropped Aug. 6, 1945. This action by the United States ended its war with the Japanese.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (1870 – 1924) – First head of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR).

Liquidators – Some 600,000 people, military and civilian, went to the Dead Zone to eliminate the contamination by hosing down streets and villages, bulldozing towns, burying topsoil and trees. Then, 90,000 of them constructed the shell, nicknamed the Sarcophagus, that covers the damaged reactor.

Matryoshka – A set of Russian nested dolls decreasing in size (placed inside each other).

MEASUREMENTS:

Dosimeter – Is a device that measures the cumulative dose of radiation received by the instrument at a particular location.

Hectares – One hectare is equal to 2.47 acres. In Ukraine after the explosion, 2.5 million hectares were contaminated.

Kilometer – One kilometer equals 1,000 meters or 0.62137119

Roentgen – Is a unit that identifies and measures radiation in the air at a particular location. As radiation passes through the human body, radioactive energy accumulates in different organs. The RAD, “radiation absorbed dose,” was developed to measure radiation in the body. One dose is equal to one roentgen of gamma radiation. Because doses from different types of radiation do not result in equal damage, the REM, “roentgen equivalent man,” was needed to estimate the relative biological damage of different types of radiation.

MONEY:

Grivnas – $1 equals 5.05 grivnas

Kopeika – An old copper coin

Nuclear fatigue – The extreme tiredness that results from intense radiation exposure.

Nuclear tan – Radiation exposure turns the skin a brown color all over the body. The more radiation absorbed, the darker the color. Some people turned black.

Pisanki eggs – Eggs decorated by drawing traditional Easter symbols on them.

Poleise area – A vast, virgin forest west of the Chernobyl plant too contaminated to inhabit.

Pripyat – Town closest to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Now a ghost town.

Radiation – Emitted by unstable atoms from many different sources, including sunlight, granite and the human body. It can cause harm when its waves and particles penetrate living tissue, as happened after the explosion.

Radiation sickness or poisoning – Causes damage to organ tissues in the body after a very large dose of radiation exposure is received over a short period of time. It can also result from exposure to a small dose for a long time. The amount absorbed determines how sick the person will be. A dose of 400 roentgens would cause severe nausea, burning sensation in the eyes and chest, headache and nonstop vomiting. Within a few hours, the skin would turn black.

Radioactive patients – Many people who absorbed radiation were radioactive and emitted as much as 20 rems per day from the cesium-137 in their bodies. It is the primary source of radiation in the Zone of Alienation. Water-soluble and toxic in tiny amounts, it can cause cancer from 10 to 30 years after entering the body. The other two radioactive elements are iodine-131 and strontium-90.

Radionuclides – Radioactive elements, which may be naturally-occurring or synthetic. They emit various types of energetic radiation – alpha and beta particles.

Radiophobia–This is a psychological condition whereby every illness from eczema to a cold is ascribed to radiation.

Sarcophagus – After the explosion, a concrete shell was constructed over the damaged reactor to contain the radiation, which was so high the parts were put in place by robots and helicopters and 90,000 liquidators.

Squatters – People who sneaked into the Dead Zone to live or former residents who returned. Some are residents who never left. They hid when others were being evacuated.

Slavutich – A town completed in 1988 and built for the power plant workers after Pripyat was abandoned.

Thyroid – It is a ductless gland that regulates growth. When iodine-131 enters the body, it lodges in this gland.

USSR – In 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics organized. This Communist government lasted until 1991 when the people in several republics, such as Ukraine, decided they wanted more say in the government.

Zones – After the disaster, the government’s Institute of Biophysics divided the contaminated areas into four zones: Alienation or Prohibited, from which the entire population was evacuated; temporary evacuation, in which, against official advice, 1,000 people had returned to live and refused to move; constant control; periodic control in which 84,000 people lived in 176 villages where food had to be brought in. The soil was too contaminated to grow anything.

Andrea White was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but has spent most of her life in Houston, Texas. She received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas. Her first book, Surviving Antarctica , was on the reading lists of several states, including the Bluebonnet list. In 2006, she won the Golden Spur award given by the Texas State Reading Association for the best book by a Texas author. She is also the author of Window Boy , a middle school novel which Winston Churchill’s great-grand-fantastic introduction into the life of my a “son Jonathan Sandys has praised as great-grandfather. It completely encapsulates the principles of ‘Never surrender!’ and ‘Determination’ that he lived by.”

In addition to writing, Ms. White serves as an active community volunteer. Partnering with the Houston Independent School District Board, she and her husband, Houston’s Mayor Bill White, have started the program Expectation Graduation to try to keep more kids in school. The Whites have three children: Will, Elena and Stephen.

“Brisk action, interesting characters, and intriguing (sometimes gruesome) details make this a compelling story.”

“A real page-turner.”

“I admit I found myself mentally shouting, ‘Look out! Get out of there!’ to the characters. This is a very moving story.”

Grade 5–9—The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in the USSR had far-reaching effects, not only on the environment, but on people’s lives as well. The author reveals these effects in this coming-of-age story. Katya Dubko celebrates her 11th birthday the day before the accident. When her father, a security guard at the station and obviously suffering from radiation sickness, comes home with the news, Katya’s life is forever changed. Although she is forewarned about the disaster by a strange boy—her domovyk , or house elf—she is nonetheless unprepared. The government evacuates families, and Katya’s beloved cottage, along with her childhood, are buried under tons of soil. She spends the next few years struggling to understand the catastrophe; the unwavering patriotism of her father, who has thyroid cancer; and discrimination from her peers. Photographs related to the disaster and Atkinson’s traditional Ukrainian illustrations occasionally break up the text. References lend to the credibility of the content, and a glossary helps with difficult terminology.