Up Periscope!: How Engineer Raye Montague Revolutionized Shipbuilding

Gr 1-5–In a nonfiction work told with clarity and enthusiasm, Swanson writes about Raye Montague (1935–2018). As a young girl, Montague was determined to become an engineer who designed ships—battleships, aircraft carriers, and submarines. She reached her goal despite the many obstacles, She was not eligible to take shop classes in high school, because she was a girl; she was not able to apply to an engineering department at college, because she was Black. Still, Montague followed her mother’s advice that she could learn anything, be anything, and do anything. She went to business school where she learned computer skills and took programming classes. She worked for the U.S. Navy as a typist and for the men who designed ships. Montague’s big chance came when the men were out sick, and she showed her supervisor that she could work with computers. Ultimately, she transferred to the Naval Ship Engineering Center where none of the men wanted to work with her. Montague was given the task of creating a computer program that could be used to completely design all the parts of a ship and she succeeded. The story unfolds in a dynamic text and emotion-packed illustrations.