Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13

Counting on Katherine is a book written by Helaine Becker. It’s illustrated by Dow Phumiruk. I like this book. It’s about “how Katherine Johnson saved Apollo 13,” like the title says. A funny quote from this book is, “By the time she turned ten, Katherine was ready for high school.” You can’t go to high school when you turn ten! This book is not a fictional book, but it does have a plot. Apollo 13 is a spacecraft. The book says that Katherine was “a star.” Her charm and her enthusiastic “WE’VE GOT IT!” are parts of what makes her a star. Katherine was a mathematician who worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA for short). Last week, Katherine turned 100, so she’s pretty old now! I could imagine how she would look. Well Katherine learned to count, as it says at the beginning of the book, and she learned to do a lot more with math than count! (Another book about this great person is the young readers’ version of Hidden Figures.) A difference between these two books is that one has been made into a movie! Readers who like history and space, all ages except adult, should enjoy this book. I give this book a rating of five stars!