| A teenage girl in the 1950's pursues her dream of becoming a mathematician in the American midwest over a background of sexism, romance and Cold War politics. This fictional account mirrors some of the true stories you can also read about in Women in Mathematics: The Addition of Difference, a collection of interviews with female mathematicians including detailed biographies. Both of these books show the difficulties faced by women in the mathematical sciences in the early and mid-20th century. Today, a more egalitarian public opinion and organizations such as the Association for Women in Mathematics have greatly improved the situation.
This novel is aimed at a teenage audience (7th-12th grade) and may help enlighten students both mathematically and politically. Note that romance, sex and religion are also topics frankly addressed by the book. | Contributed by
John C. Konrath
I found this novel to be concise and enjoyable. I believe that young adult woman would derive the most enjoyment from it; appropriately, since that seems to be the audience for which it is targeted.
The book sends the important message that women are equally capable of succeeding in math. While great sociological progress has been made in accepting women into mathematics, regretably there still exists a long establish myth that women's minds are not structured for logical thought.
This work touches on several areas of mathematics including: Fermat's Last Theorem, quadratic equations, Boolean algebra, Euclidean geometry and number theory.
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