Instructions Not Included: How a Team of Women Coded the Future

Instructions Not Included: How a Team of Women Coded the Future is written by Tami Lewis Brown and Debbie Loren Dunn. This story is about three very different women with different talents. They come together in 1944 to program a computer that will aim guns and launch a bomb. These three women, Betty, Jean, and Kay are brilliant mathematicians and they are asked to create a computer which is as reliable as they are. I like the illustrations because they are all so different. Even though they are cartoon illustrations, I feel like I am there in the control room with them. The illustrator is Chelsea Beck and she captures the personalities of the different women by giving them a specific color scheme. Even when you can’t see their faces, you know who is who in the story. The book shows that these women were not treated very well even though they did all the work. It doesn’t seem like the women even cared that they didn’t get credit for their accomplishments at the time, but I am glad they get credit now. I recommend this book for anyone who likes history and stories about heroes behind the scenes.