The following unabridged reviews are made available under license from their respective rights holders and publishers. Reviews may be used for educational purposes consistent with the fair use doctrine in your jurisdiction, and may not be reproduced or repurposed without permission from the rights holders.

Note: This section may include reviews for related titles (e.g., same author, series, or related edition).

From Horn Book

July 1, 2017
The talented black women working at NASA's Langley facility in the mid-twentieth century started as mathematics "human computers," but persisted through racism and sexism to make significant contributions as engineers, analysts, and programmers. Shetterly's outstanding young readers' edition of her similarly titled adult book highlights the intersecting worlds of educated, middle-class southern African Americans and Cold War space program scientists. Reading list, timeline. Glos., ind.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from August 29, 2016
Shetterly, founder of the Human Computer Project, passionately brings to light the important and little-known story of the black women mathematicians hired to work as computers at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Va., part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA's precursor). The first women NACA brought on took advantage of a WWII opportunity to work in a segregated section of Langley, doing the calculations necessary to support the projects of white male engineers. Shetterly writes of these women as core contributors to American success in the midst of a cultural "collision between race, gender, science, and war," teasing out how the personal and professional are intimately related. She celebrates the skills of mathematicians such as Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Hoover, whose brilliant work eventually earned them slow advancement but never equal footing. Shetterly collects much of her material directly from those who were there, using personal anecdotes to illuminate the larger forces at play. Exploring the intimate relationships among blackness, womanhood, and 20th-century American technological development, Shetterly crafts a narrative that is crucial to understanding subsequent movements for civil rights. A star-studded feature film based on Shetterly's book is due out in late 2016.

From AudioFile Magazine

Forget about breaking the glass ceiling--Robin Miles narrates the true story of four black women whose work as mathematicians helped break the sound barrier, and set the stage for space exploration. From the 1930s to the 1960s, they made calculations on such things as rocket trajectories and sonic booms, first at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), taking advantage of the opportunity that arose from the labor shortage of WWII, and then at NASA. Miles warmly profiles these hard-working women and their significant contributions to a field still dominated by white men. As the author highlights such figures as Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, Miles's inflections, rhythm, and pace move the story forward in a fascinating timeline of events. Listeners will get to hear the story before the much-anticipated movie is released next year. T.E.C. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine