Ada Lovelace : The Computer Wizard of Victorian England

by Lucy Lethbridge

Daughter of the poet Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace was a child prodigy. Brilliant at maths, she read numbers like most people read words. In 1834 she came to the attention of scientist Charles Babbage, who had just built an amazing 'thinking machine'. Thus began a remarkable collaboration in the invention of computer. Ages 10+.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Science, Historical, Childrens

96 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2003

About the author

Lucy Lethbridge has written numerous books, as well as writing articles for the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday, the Times Literary Supplement, Art News, and Art+Auction. She lives in London.

Reviews

[Anika Claire]

Review originally posted on The Oaken Bookcase, June 28, 2012.

Ada Lovelace is widely acclaimed in modern popular culture as being one of the first computer programmers because of her work on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine in 1943. Her modern-day following love her – not only was she a brilliant mathematician and rather nerdy (by today’s terminology), but also, a girl. Ada Lovelace day is held each year to ”raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths”.

Ada Lovelace: Computer Wizard of Victorian England tells the story of her life in a very interesting and easily understandable way, aimed at primary-aged children. Ada herself was rather ill for much of her life and probably suffered even more from the medical treatments of the day (electro-shock therapy, anyone?). She didn’t sound like a very easy person to work with, except when she was obsessed with a mathematical problem. All this comes across quite strongly in this book.

I think the most important messages that Ada Lovelace’s story can teach us these days is that not only is it important for the contributions of women to be recognised in the sciences, but also that anyone, man or woman, if they’re passionate about something and society looks down upon them for that, they should go ahead and keep trying (as long as no-one is hurt in the process, of course!). Ada didn’t care what the nobility thought of her eccentric ways, she just kept doing what she loved.

[Rani]

Ada was born to Lady Annabella and Lord Byron. She had brilliant imagination and learned science and Mathematics at an young age. Although she married, had children and met the expectations of her mother and the society, she never gave up on her dream to work on mathematics. She worked with Charles Babbage, a leading scientist at the time, to develop Analytical Engine. Good introduction to #WomenSTEM #historyofscience and #Computers #Girlscode

[Sarah Wiles]

This brief biography did a great job of describing Lovelace's life and times but I was disappointed it didn't describe more of her contribution to science.

[Gem]

Read this when I was 9 not even knowing she was real, I was not a smart kid...at all. but I loved it, but it scared me when Ada also showed up in Rachel caines books