Hidden Women -- a Multicultural Children's Book Day Review

Disclosure: Capstone Publishing sent me this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Have you seen Hidden Figures? It is in Hazel's top three favorite movies of all times. Our family went to see it on Martin Luther King Day last year. Last year I wrote about the real women in the story for Black History Month. And before the movie I had done a post about Katherine Johnson for a previous Black History Month. Needless to say this is a topic near and dear to us. I jumped at the chance to review a new book called Hidden Women: The African-American Mathematicians of NASA Who Helped Win the Space Race by Rebecca Rissman. 

This book starts with the African-American female pioneers of NASA or actually of NACA at that time and goes to female employees in current time. Most of them are African-American, but not all mentioned are. There are photographs of almost all of them mentioned in this book. The stories are less about the personal lives of these women than Hidden Figures shared and more about the work they did. Did you know one of Katherine Johnson's ideas that she published was tried during the Apollo 13 successful failure? Her idea in the end did not work but it was tried and luckily another idea did work and got the crew home safely. 

In truth I wish this book was around when I was teaching high school math. I remember girls telling me they couldn't do math and especially some black girls. I remember trying to convince them they could and I think holding these amazing women up as examples would have helped. This is a book that will inspire young ladies into STEM and at least give them the encouragement to try at math and science. The suggested grades are three to five but I think it could be used even higher. It is an easy read with short chapters but the words are powerful to see what these women lived through (and some are living through) and what changes have happened because of them. It is a wonderful book and truly a blessing to share these heroines of our country. It is a must check out book!!

To go with this book I looked for some rocket and spacecraft crafts. I fell in love with this rocket ship pencil case I found on YouTube. 

I also asked my fellow Kid Blogger Network bloggers for their best ones.

1) From Adventure in a Box: Cardboard Spaceship
2) From Little Bins for Little Hands: Cardboard Box Rocket Ship
3) From Mudpies and Fireflies: Simple DIY Cardboard Jetpacks
4) From There's Just One Mommy: Straw Rocket Valentine
5) Our toilet paper roll rockets for Fourth of July
6) From Mommy's Bundle: Rocket Ship Craft
7) From Crafts on Sea: Goodnight Spaceman Craft
8) From Lalymom: DIY rocket Ship Toy
9) From Rainy Day Mum: DIY Mars Rover (perfect to go with my post here)
10) From Books and Giggles: Easy Kids' Rocket Craft that Shines
11) From Buggy and Buddy: Straw Rockets with Free Rocket Template

Be sure to check out the other space related books we have reviewed including this one (on the Endeavour) for Multicultural Children's Book Day 2015, Space Atlas and Space Machines, Astronomy and More, Awesome Astronomy and Space, Mars exploration, and the ones mentioned above.

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2017 (1/27/18) is in its 5th year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Our mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working diligently to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators. 

Current Sponsors: MCBD 2018 is honored to have some amazing Sponsors on board.

2018 MCBD Medallion Sponsors

HONORARY: Children’s Book Council, Junior Library Guild
PLATINUM:Scholastic Book Clubs
GOLD:Audrey Press, Candlewick Press, Loving Lion Books, Second Story Press, Star Bright Books,Worldwide Buddies
SILVER:Capstone Publishing, Author Charlotte Riggle, Child’s Play USA, KidLit TV, Pack-n-Go Girls, Plum Street Press
BRONZE: Barefoot Books, Carole P. Roman, Charlesbridge Publishing, Dr. Crystal Bowe, Gokul! World, Green Kids Club, Gwen Jackson, Jacqueline Woodson, Juan J. Guerra, Language Lizard, Lee & Low Books, RhymeTime Storybooks, Sanya Whittaker Gragg, TimTimTom Books, WaterBrook & Multnomah, Wisdom Tales Press

2018 Author Sponsors

Honorary Author Sponsors: Author/Illustrator Aram Kim and Author/Illustrator Juana Medina
Author Janet Balletta, Author Susan Bernardo, Author Carmen Bernier-Grand, Author Tasheba Berry-McLaren and Space2Launch, Bollywood Groove Books, Author Anne Broyles, Author Kathleen Burkinshaw,Author Eugenia Chu, Author Lesa Cline-Ransome, Author Medeia Cohan and Shade 7 Publishing, Desi Babies, Author Dani Dixon and Tumble Creek Press, Author Judy Dodge Cummings, Author D.G. Driver,Author Nicole Fenner and Sister Girl Publishing, Debbi Michiko Florence, Author Josh Funk, Author Maria Gianferrari, Author Daphnie Glenn, Globe Smart Kids, Author Kimberly Gordon Biddle, Author Quentin Holmes, Author Esther Iverem, Jennifer Joseph: Alphabet Oddities, Author Kizzie Jones, Author Faith L Justice , Author P.J. LaRue and MysticPrincesses.com, Author Karen Leggett Abouraya, Author Sylvia Liu,Author Sherri Maret, Author Melissa Martin Ph.D., Author Lesli Mitchell, Pinky Mukhi and We Are One,Author Miranda Paul, Author Carlotta Penn, Real Dads Read, Greg Ransom, Author Sandra L. Richards,RealMVPKids Author Andrea Scott, Alva Sachs and Three Wishes Publishing, Shelly Bean the Sports Queen, Author Sarah Stevenson, Author Gayle H. Swift Author Elsa Takaoka, Author Christine Taylor-Butler,Nicholette Thomas and MFL Publishing Author Andrea Y. Wang, Author Jane Whittingham Author Natasha Yim


We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also works tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View our CoHosts HERE.

I am a CoHost, so be sure to check back on January 27, 2018 for the amazing link party where all the reviews are shared!!

TWITTER PARTY Sponsored by Scholastic Book Clubs: MCBD’s super-popular (and crazy-fun) annual Twitter Party will be held 1/27/18 at 9:00pm.
Join the conversation and win one of 12-5 book bundles and one Grand Prize Book Bundle (12 books) that will be given away at the party! http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/twitter-party-great-conversations-fun-prizes-chance-readyourworld-1-27-18/

Free Multicultural Books for Teachers: http://bit.ly/1kGZrta 

Free Empathy Classroom Kit for Homeschoolers, Organizations, Librarians and Educators: http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/teacher-classroom-empathy-kit/

Hashtag: Don’t forget to connect with us on social media and be sure and look for/use our official hashtag #ReadYourWorld.