Book Review #5

Book: Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine

Author: Laurie Wallmark

Illustrator: April Chu

Publisher: Creston Books

Copyright Date: 2015

Age Range: 5-8 years old

Lexile: 730

In this book, the author Laurie Wallmark details the life of Ada Lovelace. Ada grew up with
very educated parents, Lord and Lady Byron, and was fortunate to receive a good education.
The book then talks about how Ada was a child fascinated by numbers, which her mother
encouraged her to pursue her education. Young Ada is fascinated with inventions such as a
flying machine and writes, tirelessly, to calculate the the wings’ power. Ada contracts a bout of
measles that leaves her temporarily blind and paralyzed but her brilliance does not dim in these
times. Her mother drills young Ada with math problems, which Ada can see in her head, even if
she is not able to physically see them.

The books then discusses how the young Ada at the age of 17 meets the inventor Charles
Babbage who was 41. Babbage is so impressed with the young woman that her invites her
to his laboratory. This friendship was so inspiring that these two souls found solace and common
ground within each other through their desire for knowledge. Babbage shows her his Difference
Engine and then his plans for his Analytical Engine, which prompts Ada to write an algorithm that
becomes the world’s very first computer program.

The book’s final page tells how Charles Babbage never built his Analytical Engine, so Ada
never got her see her program run. But she was a woman who was born too early because
her efforts with Charles Babbage’s inventions had created a new profession of computer
programming. This would not come to pass for over 100 years after Ada had written her algorithm.

This book is beautifully illustrated and would be a great addition to a library’s juvenile
biography section. This book could be put into a STEM display so children can learn
about how women can excel in STEM fields. The readalikes listed below could also be
used with this book in a STEM display or could be read before a school age Scratch Coding
program.

Readalikes:

Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code (People Who Shaped Our World) by Laurie Wallmark

Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer by Diane Stanley

Margaret and the Moon by Dean Robbins

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor by Robert Burleigh

Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding by Linda Liukas

Hello Ruby: Journey Inside the Computer by Linda Liukas

Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist by Jess Keating

Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World by Laurie Lawlor

Book Review #4

Book: Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad

Author: Ellen Levine

Illustrator: Kadir Nelson

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Copyright Date: 2007

Age Range: 4-8

Lexile: 380

I was not aware of this story prior to this picture book, but it is an incredible and inspiring story.
This book tells the true story about a young slave named Henry and his experiences living in the
South. The book starts with an introduction to Henry Brown and we find out that he doesn’t know
how old he is because nobody had kept records of slaves’ birthdays. But he dreams about his
freedom but this dream grows further from him when he is sold to work in a warehouse and torn
away from his family. Henry grows up and falls in love but the same situation happens to his wife
and children when they are sold off in a slave market and he never sees them again. Then one day,
he gets the idea of mailing himself to the North and he finally gets his freedom after an arduous
journey.  

This is a Caldecott Honor Book and after reading this book to your child or to a group of children,
you could partner it with a picture book about Harriet Tubman. After reading both books, you could
talk about the Underground Railroad and maybe read about the different ways that people escaped
the South and how people from the North helped them. You could also track Henry’s journey on a
map with the children.

 

This book was well illustrated but there were some pages where it was difficult for me to read
the text on the page. I would assume the illustrator had intentionally used darker colors and also
the text color to convey the terrible situation that Henry was in the South. The illustrator then uses
brighter colors on the last page when Henry finally ends his journey in Philadelphia. The author’s
note at the end of the book was a good additional source for some more information on what was
happening at the time that Henry had shipped himself to the North.

Readalikes:

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford

Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson

Looking at Lincoln by Maira Kalman

Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco

The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom by Bettye Stroud

Book Review #3

Book: Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black
and White America

Author: Carole Boston Weatherford

Illustrator: Jamey Christoph

Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company in Chicago, Illinois

Copyright Date: 2015

Age Range: 4-8

Lexile reading level: 840

This book tells the story of how a young Gordon Parks grew up in the
Midwest and trials that he faced growing up in the early to mid part of
the 20th century as a black man. He is born the youngest of fifteen
children. He was originally born a stillborn but a dip in ice water shocks
his heart to beat. Gordon would go on to become one of the first black
directors in Hollywood; his most famous movie was Shaft in 1971. But
prior to his success as a photographer, writer and director; he was growing
up poor  and looking for work. He then bought a camera for $7.50 and this
move changed his life forever. He got a job working for the government in
Washington D.C. and when he got to our nation’s capital, he noticed the
segregation all throughout the city and decided to photograph the injustice
that he witnessed.

Gordon Parks is shown prejudice against his race at a very early age
when his teacher tells the class, “You’ll all wind up porters and waiters.”
The sad part of the story is that the next page says that Gordon did eventually
go to take jobs as a waiter and porter because those were some of the only jobs
offered to African Americans during that time in America. This book offers a very
limited view on Gordon’s early life. The story quickly moves to Gordon as a young
man looking for work.

Gordon Parks’ boss tries to focus his attention to Ella Watson, a cleaning
lady in the government building. Ella is supporting her family on her low
wage and Gordon soon takes a series of photos of Ella and her family. Most
famously, he took the picture entitled American Gothic with Ella holding a
mop and broom. This photograph is a reimagining of Grant Wood’s American
Gothic painting. Gordon’s picture states in his version that this lone woman is
supporting her family with her tools that she has, a broom and a mop.

I am grateful to the author of this book to offer the story of Gordon Parks
to young children. I had seen Gordon Parks’ movies Shaft and Leadbelly when
I was a teenager several years ago but I had never looked into the director of
those films. This book tells children how important the image of injustice is to
showcase and present to the public. This title should be offered in a collection
because it is a different look at an American life that is not typically talked about
to young children.

Similar Book Titles:

Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills by Renee Watson

When the Beat was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop by
Laban Carrick Hill

Dorothea Lange: The Photographer Who Found the Faces of the Depression
by Carole Boston Weatherford

Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by
Javaka Steptoe

Jake Makes a World: Jacob Lawrence, A Young Artist in Harlem by
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts