BOUNCE!

How a natural goo with miraculous properties flexed its way into sports, technology, and our daily lives.

Coming from cultures where the best balls available were stuffed with feathers or dried peas, 16th-century Europeans were likely astonished at seeing the bouncy latex ones in use in the American lands they were plundering. A few centuries later, the rubbery stuff was making up everything from boots to balloons, rubber bands to rubber duckies—especially after Charles Goodyear in the U.S. and Thomas Hancock in England simultaneously figured out how to stabilize, or “vulcanize,” it, and later scientists concocted synthetic versions. Albee expands on this story, giving full credit to the Indigenous peoples who first discovered latex and used it, and also forthrightly acknowledging that expanding demand for the natural product has subsequently led to widespread human rights violations and environmental problems. In seamlessly interwoven scientific digressions, she digs into the chemistry of polymers and of vulcanization, explains how rubber can float (or not), and notes why a rubber tire (which is “basically a huge, tire-shaped molecule”) grips the road so well. Ewen reflects the narrative’s effervescence with views of diverse groups of modern children, prim European figures in 19th-century dress, and Indigenous athletes, all exercising vigorously in pools, upon bicycles, or on various playing fields.

Albee plainly has a ball, and readers will, too.