Trajectory
by Cambria Gordon
Scholastic Press, 2024. 285 pages.
Review written January 24, 2025, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.
Winner, Mathical Book Prize, High School
My committee just selected this as a Mathical Book Prize Winner, so I’m going to post a review. It’s historical nonfiction about a teenage girl named Eleanor who gets selected to work as a human computer calculating firing tables during World War II.
I’d had no idea such work happened, and that part was super interesting. Later, Eleanor gets selected to go to a desert base and help figure out how to improve the Norden bombsight. And she meets a handsome pilot while she’s there.
The setting is fascinating, based in historical fact that I’d known nothing about, and it’s always lovely to find a book that features a mathematician.
I did have some reservations. Her mathematical “gift” is portrayed as a rather mystical thing that comes and goes, and I didn’t like that portrayal. And I’m skeptical of the details about the Norden bombsight (the kind of development done seems to have mostly happened in the 1930s) and completely failed to suspend disbelief for a climactic scene where they needed a mathematician to save the day.
But – that’s why we choose winners via committee! The vast majority reminded me that this is historical fiction. And mathematics certainly go into bomber technology. And female mathematicians certainly did important work during World War II. And is it so terrible to read about a female mathematician saving the day with her mathematical skills, even if it feels a tiny bit implausible to me?
So anyway, I’m proud of our winner. You might need to suspend disbelief a bit, but there’s a good tale here about using math to win the day. And this year had more high school titles to consider than any other year I’ve served on the Mathical committee, which was a wonderful milestone.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/trajectory.html
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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