Though girls were rarely scholars in the 19th century, Maria yearns to be an astronomer like her father. She doesn't want just to sweep with a broom like other girls, but to "sweep" the stars with a telescope and discover truths about the universe. In this beautiful first-person account, Deborah Hopkinson lyrically articulates a child's longing to study the stars, an aspiration which eventually led the real Maria Mitchell to be the first American woman to discover a comet.
