An upbeat, necessary history.
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)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-368-01105-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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