Silver Screen Glamour And An Award-Winning Innovation

There are those who embrace the occupation or calling for which they are best known every single day.  There are others who do what they love outside of the public eye.  Many pursue daily work in order to afford to follow their true passion.  The secret is to not give up your dream.  You are destined to make a difference.

Today is International Women's Day 2019.  The theme this year is #BalanceforBetter.  It's time for a more gender-balanced world with, for one, notice given to the achievements of women.  Hedy Lamarr's Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor (Sterling Children's Books, February 5, 2019) written by Laurie Wallmark with illustrations by Katy Wu celebrates the life of an exceptional woman.

Hedy Lamarr led a double life.  The public knew here as a glamorous movie star, famous throughout the world.  But in private Hedy was a brilliant inventor, a fact known only to her closest friends.

Do you know Hedy Lamarr is responsible for inventing a form of technology which keeps electronic devices, like phones and computers, less susceptible to hacking?  Most people familiar with this woman know she became a big hit on the silver screen with the release of Algiers in 1938.  Most people familiar with this woman do not know she took the parlor in her home, repurposing its use.  In this space she designed a workshop for an inventor.

Growing up in Vienna, Austria Hedy often conversed with her father about their shared interests in science.  Hedy wanted to know why things worked as they did.  Fascination with motion pictures and performing became a huge interest.  She wanted to be in movies.  Every opportunity, no matter how small, was taken by Hedy to perfect her acting skills.

Before she knew it, a Hollywood producer recognized her talent when she was performing in a play.  She was twenty-five when she starred in Algiers opposite Charles Boyer.  She shared the screen with other greats like

Angela Lansbury, Jimmy Stewart, Judy Garland, and Clark Gable.

Movies were important to a public caught in the terror of World War II.

During this time period, at a social outing, Hedy met George Antheil.  He, like Hedy, was a man of dual talents.  During a conversation, they discussed problems with guidance systems, torpedoes and ships.  A game with piano playing between the duo lead to a major new ingenious design.  Their creative minds and talents through months of work lead to the receipt of a United States patent.  Hopeful this would assist the Navy, the duo was not expecting its reception.  Time and circumstances were against them until forty years later.  More than ten years after this, fifty plus years after the patent, the world saluted their efforts.


What readers will appreciate about the writing of Laurie Wallmark is the impeccable manner in which she shifts from one time period in Hedy Lamarr's life to another.  She begins by highlighting her success as a film star and her passion for inventing.  She answers questions we may have at how she arrived at these points by taking us back in the past and working forward.

Her meticulous research is evident in the specific details she offers along with more than eighteen quotes of Hedy's beliefs supporting a particular portion of the narrative.  Laurie Wallmark not only tells us of Hedy's major invention but explains the thought process begin this form of communication.  Here are two passages with a quote.

Cameras flashed.  The glamorous movie star stepped out of her limousine and onto the red carpet.  Everyone who was anyone in Hollywood was there.  The star-studded premiere of her first English-language movie, Algiers, was the social event of 1938.

Journalists and photographers crowded around her.  If they only knew the story, the true story, behind the world's most beautiful woman.

"PEOPLE SEEM TO THINK BECAUSE I HAVE
A PRETTY FACE I'M STUPID . . . I HAVE TO WORK
TWICE AS HARD AS ANYONE ELSE TO
CONVINCE PEOPLE I HAVE SOMETHING
RESEMBLING A BRAIN."


Rendered digitally by artist Katy Wu the first image we see on the front of the matching dust jacket and book case is as stunning as Hedy Lamarr herself.  The depiction of her dual abilities is design genius.  Placing the title text within a marquee type frame is another wonderful element.

To the left, on the back, on a canvas of teal one of Hedy's quotes is placed above an introductory description of Hedy Lamarr.  Notes from her inventions float on tiny vertical dotted lines; a mirror of the marquee effect.  The opening and closing endpapers begin and end the narrative visually and textually.

On the first, actor and inventor are defined with a question concluding the representation.  On the second readers are provided with a selected bibliography, additional reading about other women in STEM and Hedy Lamarr's Films on the left.  On the title page Hedy looks at readers attired in a formal dress.

Through illustrations on full page, partial page and on double pages we are granted a view of this exciting and innovative woman.  Katy Wu draws us into each picture by shifting the perspective to coincide with the text.  We are privy to a younger Hedy sneaking into a movie theater to watch a full screen movie production.   When Hedy and George are talking about ships, torpedoes and communication systems a pictorial presentation is placed in an adjoining speech bubble.  Scientific explanations are accompanied by diagrams easily understood by readers.

We feel as though we are a part of Hedy's world through the portrayal of clothing, posters, magazines, automobiles, accessories in homes, the buildings in Austria and the vessels of World War II.  The facial expressions and body postures shown on Hedy give vitality to this amazing woman.  The fire burning within her is contagious to readers.

One of my many favorite illustrations spans two pages on a canvas of white.  A large grand piano is shown from the left to the middle of the right.  The top has been removed to show the inner workings of strings and keys.  George and Hedy are seated side by side on the piano bench, playing.  Through the look on Hedy's face we know an idea has surfaced.  This idea will be the beginning of her "hopping of frequencies" theory.


Hedy Lamarr's Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor written by Laurie Wallmark with illustrations by Katy Wu is a spirited, intelligent look at a gifted woman.  We gain knowledge and inspiration from reading this book.  I am grateful this book is in the world to be shared repeatedly with all readers.  You will want to find a place for this title on your professional and personal bookshelves.

To learn more about Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu and their other work, please follow the links attached to their names to access their websites.  Laurie Wallmark has accounts on Pinterest and Twitter.  Katy Wu has accounts on Instagram and Twitter.  Here is a link to a teacher's guide.  The cover reveal post is found at A Fuse #8 Production hosted by Elizabeth Bird, Collection Development  Manager of the Evanston Public Library system.  Wonderful writer of nonfiction, Melissa Stewart talks about this book on her site Celebrate Science.  She has an interview with Laurie Wallmark, too.


Be sure to visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher this week as others share their titles in the 2019 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.  Alyson chose this title among others to showcase this week.

A Mathematical Mind

One of several benefits of having an affinity for mathematics, at least when I was in school, was to be placed in classes with like-minded people.  One class during one particular year remains firmly entrenched in my memory.  There was a huge push to teach the New Math at that time.  Our minds were blown with working in a base other than ten.  To encourage us to complete our tasks and understand what we were doing, we were promised something we grew to love.

Being a huge fan of science fiction our math teacher would read aloud stories and books as our reward.  He had a gift for selecting captivating titles and stopping for the day at a distinctively edge-of-your-seat spot.  Whenever the period was over many of us remarked how we wished every teacher would do this.  He not only provided support in a subject we enjoyed but he enriched our world further with reading.

When you are given opportunities and encouraged to pursue something you enjoy, it can make a difference not only for you but for others.  Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine (Creston Books, October 13, 2015) written by Laurie Wallmark with illustrations by April Chu is a book showcasing the life of a remarkable woman far ahead of her time.  Her passion for numbers and inventions, supported by those closest to her, will long be remembered.

Ada was born into a world of poetry but numbers, not words, captured her imagination. 


Lady Byron, her mother, favored the field of geometry.  Her father, Lord Byron, was renowned for his poetry written during the Romantic Movement.  When still a baby, Ada and her mother left Lord Byron to live with her maternal grandparents.

Ada never saw her father again, knowing him only through his writing.  Frequently left alone by a mother who traveled, Ada found solace in writing and drawing about her two passions.  An invention catching her attention more than others was a flying machine. She even constructed a set of real wings.

One day as a storm whipped up the wind, Ada got an idea.  Taking all her papers filled with calculations, notes and drawings she left the comfort of her room to test a theory.  At a nearby pond amid the blowing rain, she made a model sailboat which she launched repeatedly, making changes after observations.  Whether it was a result of being outside in the bad weather for so long or not, disaster struck Ada.

A bout of measles left her temporarily blind and paralyzed.  Day in and day out her mother stayed by her side reading to her and quizzing her on math problems.  Her skills in numbers and analytical thinking grew but it was years before she walked without assistance.

A special tutor secured by her mother allowed Ada to connect with Charles Babbage, twenty-four years her senior, who saw the brilliance in Ada.  She became knowledgeable about his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine.  Her work on the second machine, before it was ever constructed, developing mathematical instructions, algorithms, along with her glorious imagination insured her a place in history.


Using defining events in Ada's life author Laurie Wallmark fashions a narrative from her birth until her greatest achievement, at a very young age, in creating the

world's first computer program.

Relying on her research Wallmark takes us to these specific moments with vivid descriptions of time and place.  It's as if we are living them as Ada.  Here is a sample passage.

First, Ada needed to compute the wings' power.  She broke the problem into steps---surface area and weight, wind speed and angles.  Multiplying and dividing, over and over again.
Ada loved numbers, but these calculations seemed endless.  Wasn't there an easier way?  Writing for so long made her finger hurt.  She wriggled them and returned to her numbers.


April Chu depicts the essence of Ada Byron Lovelace first use of the Difference Engine, a mechanical calculator, on the front of the book case.  Her use of color, rich muted hues, conveys a sense of history.  Certain elements in this image appear to glow.  This luminosity and palette are employed throughout the book.  The opening and closing endpapers are a part of the book.  The verso and title pages first and a timeline, partial bibliography and information about the author and illustrator on the last.

Rendered using pencil on paper and then colored on an Analytical Engine the images all span two pages.  Each one is like a portrait of a portion of this woman's distinguished life.  The details in the clothing, the interior design and exterior architecture are striking.  The depictions of London in the distance and the countryside where Ada and her mother resided are gorgeous.  Chu shifts her perspectives with intention; above, wide-angle and close-up so we are a part of each picture.

One of my favorite illustrations is when Ada goes out in the storm to the pond.  We are looking at her kneeling with her journal open before her on the bank.  Her one hand is extended toward a sailboat on the water.  It's raining and the wind is blowing.  Her cat is hiding in her satchel, worried face peeking out.  A frog and turtle are calming watching.


Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine written by Laurie Wallmark with illustrations by April Chu is a stunning portrayal in words and images of a woman who spent her lifetime devoted to her passion for numbers and inventions.  She dreamt of a future better for her efforts.  And it is. I highly recommend this title.  In addition to the timeline and limited bibliography mentioned above, an author's note, several paragraphs titled The World's First Computer Program, and Ada's Nicknames are included.

To obtain more information about Laurie Wallmark and April Chu along with their other work please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  The publisher has created a seventeen page teacher's guide.  On March 27, 2015 April Chu was interviewed at Author Turf.  To enjoy both Laurie Wallmark and April Chu speaking about the pronunciation of their names at TeachingBooks.net follow the links embedded in their names in this sentence.  Here is a link to one of the posts in the blog tour for this book located at My Brain on Books.  There is a list of the other stops on the tour.  Enjoy the trailer!




Please visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher to see the other titles selected this week by those participating in the 2016 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.  I completely enjoy my participation in this challenge.  Each week leaves me better informed than before.