Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code / Laurie Wallmark ~ 4 stars

[Joni]

Grace Hopper was born in 1906. Growing up, she was very inquisitive. She was a learner. In particular, she wanted to learn how things worked. At the young age of 7, she was taking things apart and rebuilding them. She was a junior engineer. She excelled in her schooling and graduated high school two years early. She was very eager to start college. When Grace took her entrance exams, she failed her Latin test. But she didn't let that stop her. She dove into her studies until she passed that test. Grace attended Vasser College, an all-women college. Her favorite subjects were math and physics. She also like fun and adventure. Her personal motto was: "Dare and Do." Grace continued on to graduate school at Yale University where she was the only woman in her class. She also took a teaching job, teaching math, at her old college, Vasser. During this time, American was at war and they were in need of the best mathematicians to design weapons. Grace was a patriot and wanted to serve her country, so she decided to enlist in the Navy. But she didn't meet the Navy requirements....she was too old and too skinny. It took Grave over a year to convince the Navy that they needed her. Grace's job in the Navy was to write computer programs for one of the very first computers ever built, the Mark I. She also discovered the very first "problem" with the new computer, the Mark II. This computer has stopped working and she had to figure out why. Turns out this computer had a "bug".....literally a bug. Deep inside the Mark II computer was a moth that was blocking a switch and keeping the computer from working. This is where "bugs" or "debugging" comes from when it comes to computer bugs or glitches. Grace loved her time with the Navy., so much so that she retired twice from the Navy.....finally at the age of 80. Grace died in 1992. In 2016, the US Naval Academy broke ground on a new cyber security studies building that will be named after Grace Hopper when it's completed in 2019.

Grace was such an interesting woman. I want to learn more about her.

**This book is one the 2018 Texas Topaz Youth Reading list.....my goal is the read all 69 books on the youth list this year.**