The Speed of Light in Air, Water, and Glass - Paperback

by Laura Scalzo (Author)

This kaleidoscope of a story is told in the words of a fifteen-year-old girl hiding in plain sight in her own city and of a pilot fifty years earlier flying secret missions over Laos during the Vietnam War.


No one knows Julia skipped STEM camp and checked into a luxurious hotel until she meets Kal and Tomoko. They help her find answers to some of Washington, D.C.'s best kept secrets, including her own. Kal is looking for his grandfather, who never came home from the Vietnam War. Tomoko is visiting from Japan to present a series of Heian Era paintings and tell their story. Julia regrets her chance to present her award-winning fractal at camp while beginning a conversation with Clover Adams, her hotel's famous ghost.


Julia not only creates fractals, she's named after one, but unlike typical fractals, which are iterative equations that make a repetitive design, a Julia Set is a fractal that makes a small mathematical change, which generates wild, beautiful, and unexpected outcomes.

"Lyrical and insightful." --Vince Bzdek, Editor-in-Chief, Colorado Springs Gazette