Trajectory
In 1942, seventeen-year-old Eleanor has earned the moniker Nervous Nellie. She is quiet and shy, nothing like her role model Eleanor Roosevelt. She hides many secrets: her mathematical abilities, and the fact that she’s responsible for causing the stroke that essentially stole her father’s mathematical brain and changed their family’s lives forever. After being recruited to join a top-secret Philadelphia Computing Section (PCS) of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, she has even more secrets to hide. Eleanor quickly stands out amongst these brilliant women. She is selected to go to an army airbase in California’s Mojave Desert to work on yet another top-secret project, the Norden, a new bombsight to be used by the US Air Corps. Though beginning as a Nervous Nellie, Eleanor gains confidence and maturity, eventually earning the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, yet another secret she cannot tell.
Trajectory is a work of fiction but is historical at its roots, drawing from the real women who worked as “human computers” and calculated firing tables for use during WWII. Gordon deftly draws in the horrors of the Holocaust through Eleanor’s missing relatives in Poland. She addresses historical racism when Eleanor’s friend at the PCS, Alyce (the only Black person on the team and a historical member of the PCS), must face it amongst their teammates. Gordon also touches on the Japanese American internment camps, segregation in the military, and antisemitism in the US State Department, without being didactic. Gordon presents an honest glimpse of American society during the 1940s. The story is fast-paced, and the characters are substantive, believable, and likeable. Recommended for readers ages 12 and up who enjoy WWII history, women’s history, military history, or just a plain good story.
