Children’s Books about Women in Math and Coding

Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the famous romantic poet, Lord Byron, develops her creativity through science and math.

When she meets Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first mechanical computer, Ada understands the machine better than anyone else and writes the world’s first computer program in order to demonstrate its capabilities.

The bold story of Katherine Johnson, an African-American mathematician who worked for NASA during the space race and was depicted in the film Hidden Figures.

From Katherine’s early beginnings as a gifted student to her heroic accomplishments as a prominent mathematician at NASA, Counting on Katherine is the story of a groundbreaking American woman who not only calculated the course of moon landings but, in turn, saved lives and made enormous contributions to history.

When her parents took away her candles to keep their young daughter from studying math…nothing stopped Sophie.

When a professor discovered that the homework sent to him under a male pen name came from a woman…nothing stopped Sophie.

And when she tackled a math problem that male scholars said would be impossible to solve…still, nothing stopped Sophie.

Meet Raye Montague―the hidden mastermind who made waves in the U.S. Navy!

After touring a German submarine in the early 1940s, young Raye set her sights on becoming an engineer.

Little did she know sexism and racial inequality would challenge that dream every step of the way, even keeping her greatest career accomplishment a secret for decades.

Read about the life of a Egyptian woman who lived in fifth century Alexandria and became a respected scholar in mathematics and philosophy.

Grace Hopper coined the term “computer bug” and taught computers to “speak English.”

Throughout her life, Hopper succeeded in doing what no one had ever done before.

Delighting in difficult ideas and in defying expectations, the insatiably curious Hopper is a role model for science- and math-minded girls and boys. 

A true story from one of the Women of NASA!

Margaret Hamilton loved numbers as a young girl. She knew how many miles it was to the moon (and how many back).

She loved studying algebra and geometry and calculus and using math to solve problems in the outside world.

Soon math led her to MIT and then to helping NASA put a man on the moon!

ALA Notable Book * Amelia Bloomer Top Ten Book

Two hundred years ago, a daughter was born to the famous poet, Lord Byron, and his mathematical wife, Annabella.

A hundred years before the dawn of the digital age, Ada Lovelace envisioned the computer-driven world we know today. And in demonstrating how the machine would be coded, she wrote the first computer program. 

In this beautifully illustrated picture book edition, we explore the story of four female African American mathematicians at NASA, known as “colored computers.”

They participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes, like providing the calculations for America’s first journeys into space. And they did so during a time when being black and a woman limited what they could do. But they worked hard, persisted and used their genius minds to change the world.