Hidden Figures Young Readers' Edition

by Margot Lee Shetterly

Overview

The uplifting, amazing true story—a New York Times bestseller!

This edition of Margot Lee Shetterly’s acclaimed book is perfect for young readers. It's the powerful story of four African-American female mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of the greatest moments in our space program. 

Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

This book brings to life the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who lived through the Civil Rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the movement for gender equality, and whose work forever changed the face of NASA and the country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062662378
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/29/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	5,827
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	1120L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Margot Lee Shetterly grew up in Hampton, Virginia, where she knew many of the women in her book Hidden Figures. She is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow and the recipient of a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grant for her research on women in computing. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 Setting the Scene 5

Chapter 2 A Door Opens 10

Chapter 3 Mobilization 18

Chapter 4 A New Beginning 26

Chapter 5 The Double V 30

Chapter 6 The "Colored" Computers 37

Chapter 7 War Birds 48

Chapter 8 The Duration 58

Chapter 9 Breaking Barriers 65

Chapter 10 No Limits 76

Chapter 11 The Area Rule 86

Chapter 12 An Exceptional Mind 93

Chapter 13 Turbulence 102

Chapter 14 Progress 110

Chapter 15 Young, Gifted, and Black 122

Chapter 16 What a Difference a Day Makes 132

Chapter 17 Writing the Textbook on Space 140

Chapter 18 With All Deliberate Speed 145

Chapter 19 Model Behavior 153

Chapter 20 Degrees of Freedom 160

Chapter 21 Out of the Past, the Future 173

Chapter 22 America Is for Everybody 185

Chapter 23 One Small Step 194

Timeline 199

Glossary 204

Source Notes 207

Further Reading 217

Index 219

Editorial Reviews

The perfect impetus for discussion on a host of important historical themes germane to the 1950s, such as gender roles, racial prejudice and segregation, and scientific exploration… Middle-schoolers will find their story, here in a young readers’ edition of Shetterly’s 2016 adult book, engaging and inspirational.

Booklist

The perfect impetus for discussion on a host of important historical themes germane to the 1950s, such as gender roles, racial prejudice and segregation, and scientific exploration… Middle-schoolers will find their story, here in a young readers’ edition of Shetterly’s 2016 adult book, engaging and inspirational.” — Booklist

From the Publisher

The perfect impetus for discussion on a host of important historical themes germane to the 1950s, such as gender roles, racial prejudice and segregation, and scientific exploration… Middle-schoolers will find their story, here in a young readers’ edition of Shetterly’s 2016 adult book, engaging and inspirational.

Booklist