Hidden Figures Book Report

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, is a nonfiction biography. It is based off of a true story about African-American women who significantly contributed to a space program, NASA. The key struggle to this book is that, this was set in the time period of segregation. The story begins during World War II and takes place largely during the Cold War era, when the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in a space race to be the first nation to master spaceflight. There are several characters throughout the book but three specific women are always mentioned. Katherine Coleman (who took on the married names Goble and Johnson) is an amazing black mathematician who works in the Flight Research Division at the Langley Research Center. She was

I learned about how several, talented African American women contributed to success at NASA and weren’t recognized for their help. They were cropped out of the main picture when all of the whites took their credit for their work due to discrimination. The quality of this book is very high. The story incorporated some history about new laws and freedoms being made to stop discrimination. I learned about how these African American women helped NASA, and how the story was based off of what Dorothy Vaughan witnessed, but I think there could have been more dialogue and speaking and a little less factual information. The book contained lots of dates and not as much elaboration, but at some moments there was much detail. I would rate this story a ⅘ due to the reason and story behind the writing. I would definitely recommend this to a friend because many people don’t know about how these women contributed to the Space Race and I think that a friends feeling would be more affected due to their views about this book. This story gives a mind changing idea to our past and how women dealt with segregation while in a high work labor. Margot Lee Shetterly is especially qualified to write Hidden Figures dues to her relations to