Ada Lovelace - Mille feuilles

Hardcover, 144 pages

Published March 31, 2020 by Harry N. Abrams, Abrams Books for Young Readers.

ISBN:: 978-1-4197-4075-6

(1 review)

Meet the woman who made coding cool—and possible!

Before she was a famous mathematician and the first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was the daughter of well-known poet Lord Byron. Byron died when Ada was very young, and Ada’s mother encouraged her interest in mathematics in an attempt to prevent Ada from turning into a melancholy poet like her father. Ada grew up and married a count, and as a countess, she was given access to some of England’s greatest scientists and authors, including Charles Babbage, who was working to develop an analytical engine. Seeing the potential in computers, Ada partnered with Charles and used her mathematical skills to create an algorithm that could make such a machine possible. Fascinating and lively, Ada Lovelace tells the story of the woman who helped pioneer computing! It includes a timeline, bibliography, glossary, and index.

1 edition

pixouls@bookwyrm.social reviewed Ada Lovelace by Ben Jeapes

A quick and friendly overview

4 stars

I listened to this within a day and a half as an audio book. Without much background on Ada Lovelace, while I can't fact check the content from prior knowledge, I felt like this was a solid overview of Ada Lovelace's life as an introduction. The fact it's targeted for kids adds more joyful antics to the biography's narrative. It also doesn't gloss over Lovelace's difficulties with her health and family members to make her more palatable as I might have feared. Hearing about other aspects of her life humanizes her beyond her achievements. However, it also makes me wonder what traditional non-European cultures are not acknowledged in the computer science community as precursor's to Lovelace's idea of computer programming, such as through textile forms.