From Introducing . . . Sasha Abramowitz Call me . . . Sasha. Sasha Abramowitz. That's my name, pretty much. Officially it's Sasha Marie Curie Abramowitz, but I think it's weird having someone else's name sitting right in the middle of my own, even if it is the name of the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only one to win it twice. (And get this, Marie Curie was married to a man who also won a Nobel Prize, and they had a daughter who won a Nobel Prize, and that daughter married a man who won a Nobel Prize. So don't you just wonder how her other kid, the only member of the family not to win a Nobel Prize, felt? I'll bet nobody has her name parked in the middle of theirs.) My parents thought it would be inspirational, adding Marie Curie's name to mine, as if somehow her greatness would rub off on me. When I used to complain, my father would shake his head regretfully and say, "You know, Sasha, we came very close to giving you her maiden name, too, but there just wasn't room enough on the birth certificate." I guess you have to be thankful for the little things. Like not being named Sasha Marie Sklodowska Curie Abramowitz. Though it's probably too early to say for sure, I don't think their plan is working, because even though I'm only eleven, I kind of doubt I'm going to grow up to be a chemist (Marie Curie's Nobel Prize #1) or a physicist (Nobel Prize #2). I want to be a writer. A writer and, maybe, a pastry chef. Personally, I think they should have given a Nobel Prize to the person who discovered double fudge brownies. The kind without nuts. Putting nuts in brownies was a very bad idea and, not to be too mean, I truly hope the person who came up with it lived to regret it. Excerpted from Introducing... Sasha Abramowitz by Sue Halpern All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
