Hidden Figures By Margot Lee Shetterly with Winifred Conkling

 

About Book

Title: Hidden Figures
Author: Margot Lee Shetterly with Winifred Conkling
Illustrator: Laura Freeman
Genre: Nonfiction [Biography]
Major Book Awards: 2019 Coretta Scott King Award for Illustrator
Recommended Age Range: 8 to 12
Appropriate Grade Levels: 3rd to 7th Grade

Summary

This book written by Margot Lee Shetterly is based on a true story of 4 African-American women that goes by the name of Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Christine Darden, who've contributed immensely in the Space Race. It took place during WW2, in Virginia, where there are still laws for segregation, so being an African-American woman at the time was tough. All of the 4 were really good at math and they wanted to help America win the race, so each applied to be a "computer" at NASA and landed the jobs. They all had to go through racial and gender discrimination during their times working there, but nothing was unachievable for them. Being told many things were impossible, Mary became the first female engineer at the lab, Katherine fought and became the first woman in her group to sign her name on one of the group's reports, Dorothy taught the women under her on how to use the new machines, and Christine helped NASA get to the moon. Soon enough, America was able to launch John Glenn into space to circle the Earth and Neil Armstrong to the moon, with both coming back safely. At the end of the story, all 4 women knew one thing and that everything is possible with hard work, dedication, and a love for math. 

Evaluation - Would I Incorporate this book in the classroom?

This book was so amazing! Before this book, I didn't know that there were women who contributed so much to NASA and helped our men get to space. The story of each was so wonderful and inspiring. I really liked the illustrations as well and loved how Freeman tried to resemble the women as much as possible. After doing a little bit of research, I found out that there was a movie inspired by their stories. The movie was great and did a good job of showing the discrimination they had to go through as a black woman in America, while working hard in helping America to get to space. All in all, I would definitely use this book in my classroom from 3rd to 7th grade. It teaches students about how unfairly African-Americans were treated in society and the workplace, as well as a reminder that nothing is impossible. This book is pretty versatile, so I can use it in a space lesson, history lesson, or math lesson. But a lesson that I would do after reading this book is have students do a character-map worksheet where they analyze one character from the story, as well as, as a class explore the meaning of this book, its title, and the social injustices at the time and today.