Book review: Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race, by Margot Lee Shetterly with Winifred Conkling, illustrated by Laura Freeman

Shetterly, Margot Lee with Winifred Conkling. Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race. Illus. by Laura Freeman. Harper, 2018. $17.99. unp. ISBN 978-0-06-274246-9. Ages 5-8. P7Q8

In 2016, the movie about four black women crossing the color barrier at NASA became the highest grossing domestic film at that year’s Academy Awards. Conkling helps Shetterly adapt her New York Times bestselling book for children. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden are the four names made famous. They were engineers and mathematicians at Langley Research Center beginning in the 1940s when women were not often given these positions, and black women were even more rejected. Paintings highlight each woman as they are treated separately from one another with scenes from the Center in the background. A two-page timeline goes from the 1903 Wright Brothers flight to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon.

Verdict: The inspiring stories of these black women are important to the understanding that neither race nor gender necessarily needs to be a limiting factor and that persistence pays.

January/February 2018 review by Nel Ward.