4 of 6 copies available
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBOÂŽ STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE ⢠ONE OF THE âMOST INFLUENTIALâ (CNN), âDEFININGâ (LITHUB), AND âBESTâ (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE ⢠ONE OF ESSENCEâS 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS ⢠WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review ⢠Entertainment Weekly ⢠O: The Oprah Magazine ⢠NPR ⢠Financial Times ⢠New York ⢠Independent (U.K.) ⢠Times (U.K.) ⢠Publishers Weekly ⢠Library Journal ⢠Kirkus Reviews ⢠Booklist ⢠Globe and Mail
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cellsâtaken without her knowledgeâbecame one of the most important tools in medicine: The first âimmortalâ human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bombâs effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Henriettaâs family did not learn of her âimmortalityâ until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks familyâpast and presentâis inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks familyâespecially Henriettaâs daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldnât her children afford health insurance?
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Awards
-
Release date
February 2, 2010 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780307589385
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780307589385
- File size: 7115 KB
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Levels
- ATOS Level: 8
- LexileÂŽ Measure: 1140
- Interest Level: 9-12(UG)
- Text Difficulty: 6-9
-
Reviews
-
Starred review from October 5, 2009
Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story about âfaith, science, journalism, and grace.â It is also a tale of medical wonders and medical arrogance, racism, poverty and the bond that grows, sometimes painfully, between two very different womenâSkloot and Deborah Lacksâsharing an obsession to learn about Deborahâs mother, Henrietta, and her magical, immortal cells. Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother of five in Baltimore when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned the first viable, indeed miraculously productive, cell lineâknown as HeLa. These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments. What Skloot so poignantly portrays is the devastating impact Henriettaâs death and the eventual importance of her cells had on her husband and children. Sklootâs portraits of Deborah, her father and brothers are so vibrant and immediate they recall Adrian Nicole LeBlancâs Random Family.
Writing in plain, clear prose, Skloot avoids melodrama and makes no judgments. Letting people and events speak for themselves, Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit societyâs most vulnerable people. -
September 13, 2024
Gr 9 Up-The author's high school biology teacher mentioned the name Henrietta Lacks in a class in the 1990s, but when Skloot asked for more information, he said no one knew who she was. But her cells were famous: before she died in 1951, a doctor had put a slice of her tumor in a petri dish, and the cells, called "HeLa," continued reproducing. They jumpstarted the field of cell biology and an industry that eventually sold her so-called immortal cells to researchers worldwide. In the whirlwind, no one looked back to acknowledge Lacks, or her family. From a young age, Skloot wondered how-and why-the scientific community left Lacks behind. By developing a deep, rich relationship with Henrietta's daughter Deborah, Skloot broke through the family's deep distrust of the medical profession to tell Henrietta's story dramatically and respectfully. VERDICT Like a mystery novel, this wonderful book finds the human drama behind the scientific breakthrough of the discovery of cells taken from a young Black woman dying of cervical cancer without her knowledge.-Georgia Christgau
Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-