Ada's Ideas

Award-winning author/illustrator Fiona Robinson’s picture book biography Ada’s Ideas is a compelling portrait of a woman who saw the potential for numbers to make art.

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was the daughter of Lord Byron, a poet, and Anna Isabella Milbanke, a mathematician. Her parents separated when she was young, and her mother insisted on a logic-focused education, rejecting Byron’s “mad” love of poetry. But Ada remained fascinated with her father and considered mathematics “poetical science.”

Via her friendship with inventor Charles Babbage, she became involved in “programming” his Analytical Engine, a precursor to the computer, thus becoming the world’s first computer programmer.

“Robinson celebrates Lovelace for her powerful analytical mind in spite of an overbearing mother, an absent father, and a restrictive social position . . . A fascinating and uplifting STEAM selection, highly recommended.” —School Library Journal