We are prepping The Curious Coder, celebrating Amazing Grace Murray Hopper, to ship out later this week. As a girl, Grace was incredibly curious. She asked lots of questions and was fascinated by how things work. She wondered what made clocks literally tick, so she took apart every clock in her home to find out! As we celebrate Grace’s life, we want to share some of our favorite books about other curious world changing ladies. Check out our book recommendations below:
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Computer Decoder: Dorothy Vaughan, Computer Scientist by Andi Diehn
A full-color picture book biography about Dorothy Vaughan, one of NASA’s first African American managers and one of the groundbreakers on the front line of electronic computing―includes hands-on STEM activities for an introduction to coding.
Dorothy Vaughan loved things that made sense―especially numbers! In Computer Decoder: Dorothy Vaughan, Computer Scientist, elementary-aged children follow Dorothy’s journey from math teacher to human computer and beyond, a journey made difficult because she was an African American woman working during a time of segregation. Dorothy worked incredibly hard to meet the challenges that greeted her at every turn and rose to the level of supervisor, the first black supervisor in the history of her company! But another challenge awaited when a mechanical computer threatened to replace the teams of human computers. How will Dorothy figure out this problem?
Finding Wonders: Three Girls who Changed Science by Jeannine Atkins
Maria Merian was sure that caterpillars were not wicked things born from mud, as most people of her time believed. Through careful observation she discovered the truth about metamorphosis and documented her findings in gorgeous paintings of the life cycles of insects.
More than a century later, Mary Anning helped her father collect stone sea creatures from the cliffs in southwest England. To him they were merely a source of income, but to Mary they held a stronger fascination. Intrepid and patient, she eventually discovered fossils that would change people’s vision of the past.
Across the ocean, Maria Mitchell helped her mapmaker father in the whaling village of Nantucket. At night they explored the starry sky through his telescope. Maria longed to discover a new comet—and after years of studying the night sky, she finally did.
Told in vibrant, evocative poems, this stunning novel celebrates the joy of discovery and finding wonder in the world around us.
Tu Youyou's Discovery: Finding a Cure for Malaria by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
Tu Youyou had been interested in science and medicine since she was a child, so when malaria started infecting people all over the world in 1969, she went to work finding a treatment. Trained as a medical researcher in college and healed by traditional medicine techniques when she was young, Tu Youyou started experimenting with natural Chinese remedies. The treatment she discovered through years of research and experimentation is still used all over the world today.
Maryam’s Magic: The Story of Mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani by Megan Reid
As a little girl, Maryam Mirzakhani was spellbound by stories. She loved reading in Tehran’s crowded bookstores, and at home she'd spend hours crafting her own tales on giant rolls of paper.
Maryam loved school, especially her classes in reading and writing. But she did not like math. Numbers were nowhere near as interesting as the bold, adventurous characters she found in books. Until Maryam unexpectedly discovered a new genre of storytelling: In geometry, numbers became shapes, each with its own fascinating personality—making every equation a brilliant story waiting to be told.
As an adult, Maryam became a professor, inventing new formulas to solve some of math's most complicated puzzles. And she made history by becoming the first woman—and the first Iranian—to win the Fields Medal, mathematics’ highest award.
Maryam's Magic is the true story of a girl whose creativity and love of stories helped her—and the world—to see math in a new and inspiring way.
What are some of your favorite books about curious women for kids? For adults? Sharing is caring and we’re always looking for something to read!