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The Children's Bookshelf: A Computer Called Katherine

A COMPUTER CALLED KATHERINE: How Katherine Johnson Helped Put America on the Moon written by Suzanne Slade and illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison is a handsome picture book biography about a determined young math whiz who started college at the age of fifteen and went on to break barriers in the world of mathematics.

Katherine left a teaching position to take a job in 1953 at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory as a computer---- a mathematician who made calculations.  Katherine eventually impressed the all-male engineers with her questions. When asked to calculate a flight path to put a man in outer space she asked how high the rocket should fly, where it should splashdown and when it should land.

The double-page illustration of Katherine’s flight path for Alan Shepard’s flight into outer space on May 5, 1961, and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean is beautiful. Vibrant shades of blue produce a striking background for the white arc of the rocket’s path.

Katherine also verified John Glenn’s trajectory to orbit the Earth in 1962 and designed and verified Neil Armstrong’s flight path to the moon in 1969. Armstrong would not blast off until she checked the numbers!  

As the fine narrative states, Katherine’s success was due to the early support of her family and her teachers as well as her own intense love of mathematics.

A COMPUTER CALLED KATHERINE: How Katherine Johnson Helped Put America on the Moon written by Suzanne Slade and illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison is designed for children 5-8 years of age (Little Brown and Company, 2019).

Questions and activities for A Computer Called Katherine

As a very young girl, Katherine Johnson loved counting. As the book shows, she counted everything including the steps to the church, the plates on the table and the stars in the sky. What do you love to do? What do you find yourself doing because it is so much fun? Think about it. Don’t forget to include activities such as singing songs, drawing pictures, reading books, building structures such as towers and cities and collecting things such as stones, baseball cards or shells.

Katherine Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 for her contributions at NASA. Look on the internet for a picture of this medal with help from a parent if needed. It is very beautiful and contains many stars, an eagle and a blue ribbon. After you study the picture draw your own picture of this medal and color it in with crayons or colored pencils.

Due to her excellent ability in mathematics and asking questions Katherine was invited to be a member of the space team organized to send America’s first astronaut into space. Why was she told she could not go to the team’s meetings? What did she do about it?

Sue Ann Martin is professor emerita of Communication and Dramatic Arts and the founding and past Dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts at Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. She first became interested in children’s literature when she wrote her PhD thesis on the oral characteristics of the Caldecott Award-winning children’s books. Her PhD is in Speech and Interpretation with a cognate in Early Childhood Education. She went on to review children’s books for the Detroit Free Press, write three popular resource books for teachers regarding children’s books and the creative process. She also reviewed newly-published books for Arts Almanac specials on WCMU Public Radio. Her 2002 children’s books special for WCMU won a Merit Award in Special Interest Programming from the Michigan Association of Broadcasters.