![]() ![]() She notess, “If you want to know the answer to something, you have to ask a question. In fact, Johnson loved teaching math because she felt that often teachers didn’t have any passion for math, and sometimes their students ended up intimidated by the subject. That is much better than just solving the question on a test.” Int he meantime, you’ll experience the joy of learning and have the tremendous satisfaction that comes with figuring something out on your own. If you don’t get it the first time, you’ll get it the second time. Because if you approach any problem properly, you’ll get the answer. I taught students to understand the background of what they were working on, how to figure out what the problem was and then how to attack it. “Back then, just as today, some teachers merely taught right and wrong answers. It’s what she says about the teaching of math that strikes home with this teacher, me, who teaches math to elementary-age students. Often she counts things and uses numbers to tell the story. Johnson’s love of mathematics shines through the story. She writes about her love of math and teaching math, and she writes about NASA and the contributions she and other women of color made to the space program. In fact, Johnson points out that her brother and sister benefitted from something that many Southern colleges and universities did during that time to avoid integration - they provided scholarships so that students of color would attend other universities and not integrate their institutions.īut Johnson doesn’t just provide a history of segregation and discrimination in the 20th century. That effectively stopped any schools that might have considered integrating from doing so. That was when many Southern states passed state laws declaring that any public school that integrated its students would not receive state funding. Even after reading many books and novels about segregation, I had never heard the term massive resistance. ![]() In fact, adult readers might just learn something about the history of segregation. Johnson paints a picture of a segregated South, and she doesn’t mince words when she describes the unwillingness and downright refusal of the Southern states to follow federal law after the Supreme Court held in Brown v Board of Education that segregation was unconstitutional. Readers will cringe when, in spite of a college degree in mathematics, Katherine and her college-educated husband had to take jobs as housekeeper and handyman for a wealthy white couple because those were the best-paying jobs they could get. The teachers at the small, segregated school were amazed at Katherine’s abilities, and she began to attend school in her own right. But when Katherine’s older brother had a hard time in math, her mother sent her to school with him to help him. Of course, it helped that her parents valued education and taught their children at home even before they started school. Not only is the story of Katherine Johnson’s life inspiring, but the story she tells is filled with emotion and facts and history, and the way she combines them all into this middle grade book is superb.įrom the age of four, Katherine was a prodigy. Now in Reaching for the Moon she tells her own story for the first time, in a lively autobiography that will inspire young readers everywhere.“Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson” is a very powerful book. Katherine Johnson’s story was made famous in the bestselling book and Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. She worked on many of NASA’s biggest projects including the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first men on the moon. In the early 1950s, Katherine was thrilled to join the organization that would become NASA. Still, she lived her life with her father’s words in mind: “You are no better than anyone else, and nobody else is better than you.” As an African American and a girl growing up in an era of brutal racism and sexism, Katherine faced daily challenges. But ability and opportunity did not always go hand in hand. ![]() In school she quickly skipped ahead several grades and was soon studying complex equations with the support of a professor who saw great promise in her. The inspiring autobiography of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who helped launch Apollo 11.Īs a young girl, Katherine Johnson showed an exceptional aptitude for math. “Captivating, informative, and inspiring…Easy to follow and hard to put down.” - School Library Journal (starred review) “This rich volume is a national treasure.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ![]()
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