Ada's Ideas

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was the daughter of Lord Byron, a poet, and Anna Isabella Milbanke, a mathematician. Her parents separated when she was young, and her mother insisted on a logic-focused education, rejecting Byron's "mad" love of poetry. But Ada remained fascinated with her father and considered mathematics "poetical science." Via her friendship with inventor Charles Babbage, she became involved in "programming" his Analytical Engine, a precursor to the computer, thus becoming the world's first computer programmer. This picture book biography of Ada Lovelace is a compelling portrait of a woman who saw the potential for numbers to make art.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

School Library Journal Review

PreS-Gr 3-Ada Lovelace was only one month old when her strict mathematician mother left her dreamy poet father, Lord Byron, and she never saw him again. Alive during Britain's Industrial Revolution, Lovelace's mother set her daughter upon a strict schedule of rigorous academics when she was still quite young. When Lovelace was 16, her mother introduced her to English high society, including famed inventor Charles Babbage. Together Lovelace and Babbage worked on Babbage's Analytical Engine-a precursor to the computer that helped accurately orient ships on long journeys-and it became Lovelace's way of both escaping social expectations and fulfilling her creative and mathematical mind. Unfortunately, the Analytical Engine was never built, so Lovelace's genius was not recognized in her time. Today she is known as the world's first computer programmer. The fluid and lovely narration by British stage and screen actress Rosalyn Landor is enhanced by music and sound effects. When Lovelace briefly speaks to listeners to explain the logic of the computer's calculations, it is narrated in an entirely different voice. VERDICT This audiobook version of a picture book biography will inspire listeners, especially girls, to follow their talents and interests and be true to themselves. ["A fascinating and uplifting STEAM selection, highly recommended for biography collections": SLJ 10/16 review of the Abrams book.]-Jennifer Verbrugge, State Library Services, Roseville, MN © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Born in 1815, Ada Lovelace grew up with a wealthy, intelligent mother, who left her husband (Lord Byron) soon after Ada's birth and educated her daughter well, particularly in mathematics. Ada was 17 when she met Charles Babbage, who had invented the Difference Engine, a forerunner of the modern computer. Fascinated, Ada worked on algorithms that could be punched into cards to direct this unusual device, and she imagined innovative applications for the more advanced machine that Babbage hoped to build. Punch cards are a recurring, distinctive motif in the illustrations and on the endpapers of this beautifully designed book. Combining mathematical, mechanical, and whimsical elements, the illustrations were created using cut-paper elements from watercolor paintings that were reassembled and photographed as three-dimensional collages. Robinson writes effectively for readers who understand terms such as first computer programmer and life of a nineteenth-century English lady, though many children will need more explanation. This picture-book biography clearly conveys Lovelace's constricted upbringing, her intellectual brilliance, and her pleasure in applying her mind to a complex challenge.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2016 Booklist

Horn Book Review

Whisked away as a newborn by Anne Milbanke, her strait-laced mathematician mother, Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) never knew her father, the impetuous Romantic poet Lord Byron. Determined to suppress Ada's imagination (and any other of Byron's "reckless" traits), Milbanke banned poetry, urging her daughter to explore numbers instead. Yet Ada still "[found] her own sort of poetical expressionthrough math!" Inspired by the Industrial Revolution's new steam-powered machinery, young Ada envisioned a fanciful contraption: a flying mechanical horse. A serious bout of measles sidelined her "Flyology" work, but her ingenuity soon whirred again when she met inventor Charles Babbage. Writing a complex algorithm for Babbage's Analytical Engine (an early computer prototype) to calculate Bernoulli numbers, Ada became the first computer programmer--and a visionary one at that, foreseeing programs for "pictures, music, and words" more than one hundred years before the first functional computers were built. Robinson's writing is direct and deft (if exclamation point-heavy) and mostly accessible to younger readers. But what really steal the show are her whimsical illustrations: paper cutouts arranged in layers and photographed for a striking collage effect. Robinson's eye-catching images feature equations, geometric diagrams, and math instruments, artfully emphasizing the picture-book biography's conclusion that for Ada Lovelace, "a great imagination proved just as important as mathematical skill." A bibliography and brief notes about Bernoulli numbers and the book's illustrations are appended. [See also Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science, reviewed below.] tanya d. auger (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.