• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Ursula Franklin was a brave and brilliant woman. Born in Germany with Jewish ancestry, she survived the Holocaust while many in her family were killed in the Nazi’s concentration camps. She became a physicist and an engineer at a time when women were not welcome in academics. These experiences shaped Ursula, and she went on to stand up for equality, for peace, and for the protection of the environment and the vulnerable throughout her life.

Ursula Franklin was also a caring mother, as her daughter Monica Franklin shows in the stories here. Ursula was celebrated in her lifetime, receiving both the Governor General’s Award and the Pearson Medal of Peace. Today she has not only a street but a school named after her in Toronto, where children can learn to remain undaunted despite what hardships we face—to pursue our dreams while standing up for what is right—under the shelter of her name.

Monica Franklin is a retired lawyer living in Toronto with her family. She is very pleased that her children were able to know and learn from their inspiring maternal grandmother, Ursula Franklin. It was only later in life that Monica came to learn the extent of her mother's achievements and the obstacles she overcame.

Monica Franklin's profile page

Erin Della Mattia is a writer and editor from Brampton, Ontario. Her fiction has appeared in The Puritan and in the fairy tale anthology Sharper Than Thorns. Although her collection of book ideas grows ever larger, she can usually be found elbow-deep in the brilliant mire of someone else's manuscript.

Erin Della Mattia's profile page