This may be an odd book for a young man like myself to review, but as soon as I saw it on the shelf at Calvin branch I knew I had to review it. I had already been extremely interested in the particular historical figures it revolves around, namely Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. I don’t particularly want to go into too many details about my opinions of them, I could go on for a long time, and I don’t want this review to be too personal. Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the Romantic poet Lord Byron, is considered by many authorities to be the world’s first computer programmer and was a brilliant mathematician. Mary Shelley is of course the young female author of Frankenstein, and was influenced by Ada’s father in 1814 to publish the story.

Now to the topic at hand. This book expressly indicates when the facts are being changed for dramatic purposes (for example, in real life Shelley would have been old enough to be Ada’s mother), which is always useful to know. The book itself contains an index of the real life figures the story was based and provides their actual biography. This novel loves to make jokes about real historical figures; for example, a young Charles Dickens is featured in the narrative as an associate of the girls who, just like the real Charles Dickens, works in a boot factory gluing the labels on boots. The jokes may fly over some younger readers’ heads, but then again, this is definitely a book for the perceptive child.

I swear that Ada has an autism spectrum disorder. The social awkwardness, the highly intelligent, analytical way of thinking, the way she uses metaphors that only she could understand to solve problems is identical to the behavior of many children on the spectrum. She treats people as variables in an equation and uses that system to solve a mystery. That’s pretty cool. This book speaks to those older kids who are very perceptive and curious about the world around them. It’s also very witty and has a great respect for kids’ intelligence.