Instructions Not Included: How a Team of Women Coded the Future

by Tami Lewis Brown, Chelsea Beck (Illustrator), Debbie Loren Dunn

Overview

Click. Whir. Buzz.


Not so long ago, math problems had to be solved with pencil and paper, mail delivered by postman, and files were stored in paper folders and metal cabinets. But three women, Betty Snyder, Jean Jennings, and Kay McNulty knew there could be a better way. During World War II, people hoped ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), one of the earliest computers, could help with the war effort. With little guidance, no instructions, and barely any access to the machine itself, Betty, Jean, and Kay used mathematics, electrical engineering, logic, and common sense to command a computer as large as a room and create the modern world. The machine was like Betty, requiring outside-the-box thinking, like Jean, persistent and consistent, and like Kay, no mistakes, every answer perfect. Today computers are all around us, performing every conceivable task, thanks, in large part, to Betty, Jean, and Kay's pioneering work. Instructions Not Included is their story.


This fascinating chapter in history is brought to life with vivid prose by Tami Lewis Brown and Debbie Loren Dunn and with striking illustrations by Chelsea Beck. Detailed back matter including historical photos provides a closer look.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781368011051
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	10/08/2019
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	288,854
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	890L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Tami Lewis Brown is a former lawyer and elementary school librarian. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts where she has served on the Board of Trustees for over ten years. Her books include two other picturebook biographies, Art Is Life and Soar, Elinor!, which was a 2011 Top Ten Amelia Bloomer Project selection and Junior Library Guild Selection. She lives with her family in Washington, DC.


Debbie Loren Dunn graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Computer Science and worked in the computer industry for 20 years, specializing in databases and data mining. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts where she serves on the Board of Trustees. Also, she is a current Board Member of the Austin Crohn's and Colitis Foundation, a former Regional Advisor for SCBWI Austin and a former Board Member for The Writers' League of Texas. She lives in Austin, Texas with her family.


You can visit Tami and Debbie online at their website www.brownanddunn.com.



Chelsea Beck (chelseadrewthis.com) is an illustrator based in a sunny little apartment in Brooklyn, New York. She currently works for Gizmodo Media Group and has created illustrations for clients including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, the Atlantic, and some of the coolest musical acts all over the USA. Instructions Not Included is the first book she has illustrated.

Editorial Reviews

09/30/2019

The history of three women—Jean Jennings, Kay McNulty, and Betty Snyder—who created the code for an experimental WWII computer and made fundamental contributions to computer science, anchor this book. Though the story is framed as “some people thought there was a better way... to solve routine problems by using machines,” the problem these women focused on was anything but routine: programming EINAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) for a missile launch, shown in Beck’s stylized cartoon illustrations. Moreover, the text reduces these trailblazers to one-dimensional characters: “Jean, persistent and consistent”; “A+ Kay, never misses a day”; “left-handed Betty... plays her own way.” The larger story of how the women came to be involved with the program is not covered, though the text explains their later contributions to the field, which an authors’ note further discusses. Ages 6–8. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

09/01/2019

Gr 1–3—In January of 1942, a classified ad appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper seeking women mathematicians to aid the war effort by calculating weapon trajectories. Betty Snyder, Jean Jennings, and Kay McNulty proved to have exceptional problem-solving skills. They were invited to a secret lab at the University of Pennsylvania to figure out a way to tell the world's largest computer, the ENIAC, how to conduct specific calculations. Initially, the women were not allowed to see it; still, they worked tirelessly to determine a way to translate the logic of mathematics into a code the machine could understand. The day before the computer was to be unveiled to important dignitaries, the women discovered that ENIAC spits out incorrect answers. Working through the night, Betty fell asleep and found a solution in a dream. Within the story, we learn that all of the women went on to design important innovations in computer programming. The back matter adds information about each woman's contributions. Beck's illustrations are executed with simple, clean lines that artfully represent the myriad expressions on the women's faces as they tackle complex problems, experience satisfaction, and show determination. Some pages are in color; others are in shades of black and white. Each woman is featured with her own distinctive color. The narrative consists of short, carefully laid out words, sentences, and stanza-like paragraphs reminiscent of free verse poetry. VERDICT An important and motivating contribution for young readers about women pioneers in STEM.—Maggie Chase, Boise State University, ID

School Library Journal

2019-06-16
A celebration of three of the female programmers of the World War II-era computer, ENIAC.

Present-tense text describes how Betty Snyder, Jean Jennings, and Kay McNulty have always been standouts: Betty inventively individualistic, Jean tenacious, and Kay perfectionistic. The highly intelligent women especially love math. During WWII, the call goes out for female mathematicians to join the war effort, computing the math problems that determine angles and timing of weapons. But there's also a top-secret project, the ENIAC. The three heroines are among the mathematicians tapped to figure out how to program the machine and ensure its fast calculations are accurate. The machine's a costly investment, and it's up to the programmers to get it working in time for a demonstration for an audience of important men. With each wrong answer ENIAC generates, the pressure on the programmers grows. When they succeed—just in time—the men celebrate by congratulating themselves while the women get back to work coming up with important innovations in programming (Betty's sort-merge datastream, Jean's scheme to store programs, and Kay's thrifty use of memory). The crisp, clear illustrations color-code the women yellow, red, and green for ease in keeping them straight and for showing montages. While the three are white, the forward-looking final page turn embraces the computer age with an illustration of three girls—Asian, white and chubby, and black—sharing the color-coded motif and other visual ties to the heroines' stories.

An upbeat, necessary history. (authors' note, further resources) (Informational picture book. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews