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.
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“This is an incredibly powerful and complex story, and Shetterly has it down cold…Her well-documented research is immense, and her narrative compels on every level.”
— Booklist (starred review)
“Shetterly’s highly recommended work offers up a crucial history that had previously and unforgivably been lost.”
— Library Journal (starred review)“Exploring the intimate relationships among blackness, womanhood, and twentieth-century American technological development.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Their story is inspiring and enlightening.”
— Kirkus ReviewsMargot Lee Shetterly is a writer who 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.
Bahni Turpin, winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and several prestigious Audie Awards for her narrations, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. Publishers Weekly magazine named her Narrator of the Year for 2016. She is an ensemble member of the Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles. She has guest starred in many television series, including NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Six Feet Under, Cold Case, What about Brian, and The Comeback. Film credits include Brokedown Palace, Crossroads, and Daughters of the Dust. She is also a member of the recording cast of The Help, which won numerous awards.