Diane Stanley is the author and/or illustrator of more than sixty
books for children, noted especially for her award-winning picture
book biographies. She and Jessie Hartland recently collaborated
on Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science, which was named an ALA
Notable Book and an Amelia Bloomer Top Ten Book, among other
accolades. Diane is the recipient of the Washington
Post/Children’s Book Guild Award for Nonfiction for the body of her
work. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can visit her at
DianeStanley.com.
Jessie Hartland is the author and illustrator of many nonfiction
titles for young readers, including Our Flag Was Still There,
which was named a Bank Street Best Book of the Year. The New
York Times praised her “joyful folk-art illustrations”
in Harlem Grown, written by Tony Hillery. She has painted
murals at a Japanese amusement park, designed Christmas windows for
Bloomingdale’s, and put her mark on ceramics, watches, and all
sorts of other things. She has done drawings for many magazines and
newspapers, including The New York
Times, Travel and Leisure Family Club, Martha
Stewart Kids, and Bon Appétit. She lives in New York City.
Visit her at JessieHartland.com.
Stanley has been delighting and informing readers with her
biographies for years, and here, her considerable talents are once
again on display. . . . Hartland’s charmingly busy art, reminiscent
of Maira Kalman’s work, is full of wit—calculations sweep across
pages—and meshes well with Stanley’s inviting text. This is a solid
addition to STEM studies, yes, but, also a great choice for any
biography lovers.
*Booklist, STARRED REVIEW*
Complementing the clear prose, Hartland's whimsical gouache
pictures portray white figures with coral lips and in period dress.
Gestural brushstrokes loosely evoke landscapes and interiors, yet
scores of objects—from book titles and period toys to an
omnipresent cat—provide plentiful visual interest. Pithy narrative
plus charming pictures equals an admiring, admirable portrait of a
STEM pioneer.
*Kirkus Reviews*
Stanley delivers a breezy but insightful overview of the curiosity
and determination that drove Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) to pursue her
intellectual passions, tracing her childhood dreams of flight, her
friendship and working relationship with Charles Babbage, and her
pioneering programming work in service of promoting Babbage’s
Analytical Machine. Hartland keeps the mood light in loopy gouache
cartoons that humorously portray Lovelace as the creative and
intelligent product of parents “as different as chalk and cheese”;
in facing family portraits, the “rational, respectable, and strict”
Lady Byron stares uncomfortably at her husband, Lord Byron, who
looks rakish in multiple senses of the word. An author’s note and
timeline conclude a thoroughly engaging look at a trailblazing
mathematical mind.
*August 15, 2016*
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