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Book cover with an illustration of a woman walking before a planet and space. A shooting star is right behind her. The title reads "Counting the stars."
Book cover with an illustration of a woman walking before a planet and space. A shooting star is right behind her. The title reads "Counting the stars."
Look inside an illustrated book featuring two people looking and pointing up to the stars in the night sky.
Look inside a book featuring an illustration of a woman sitting in a classroom taking a test. Behind her, a poster reads "Jobs for boys."
Look inside a book featuring illustrations of women in a classroom. They have dark skin tones and are wearing 1950s dresses.
Look inside a book featuring women with dark skin tones walking next to airplanes and hangers.
Look inside a book featuring text on one page and an illustration of a woman looking up in the sky at airplanes.

Counting the Stars: The Story of Katherine Johnson, NASA Mathematician

$17.99

From award-winning author Lesa Cline-Ransome and acclaimed illustrator Raúl Colón comes the sensitive, informative, and inspiring picture book biography of the remarkable mathematician Katherine Johnson, one of the NASA “human computers” whose work was critical to the first US space launch.

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines, and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program. Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws were in place in the early 1950s, Katherine worked analyzing data at the NACA (later NASA) Langley laboratory.

In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine Johnson was called upon and John Glenn said “get the girl” (Katherine Johnson) to run the numbers by hand to chart the complexity of the orbital flight. He knew that his flight couldn’t work without her unique skills.

President Barack Obama awarded Katherine Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 and her incredible life inspired the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Get to know this incredible and inspirational woman with this beautifully illustrated picture book from an award-winning duo.

Hardcover