Why your kids (and you) should read “Ada and the supercomputer”

Will a young adult STEM novel encourage Vera to get a tiny tattoo? Read to find out 😅

In 2023, I promised myself that I would broaden my reading experiences. While I read a fair bit, most of it is nonfiction and work related. So, this year I decided to “open the aperture” (to use a cringey consulting term 😬) and read whatever books came into my life, with a heavy bias for fiction. Cue: The Fishtown Science Fiction Book Club, #BookStagram recs, friend recs, #book-club at work (special shout-out to Bob Borek, the most bookish Bob at Datavant :))… Yet, the one place I didn’t expect to find a delightful book recommendation was a LinkedIn message. That’s how Doris Dobi introduced me to Ada, and her quest to build a supercomputer. I just finished the book and highly recommend it for kids and adults alike. In fact, I recommend adults read it WITH kids in their life. Sharing some of my thoughts below, including a few book-club-style questions, to get the conversation going. Hope you enjoy! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cover of “Ada and the supercomputer” [Amazon]

Why I liked this book

• It’s a love story… to the quest for curiosity. I’ll get this out of the way first: this book is NOT REALLY a story about building a supercomputer. It’s also not a romantic novel. Don’t get me wrong, there are many tiny love stories (past, present, future..?) in there. But taken as a whole, the book is an ode to nurturing curiosity. The characters in the book are both smart AND curious, but none as much as the titular character. While Ada’s friend Max and her aunt Lizzie frequently note that Ada’s insatiable thirst for questioning can be annoying, they and others also indulge her with answers, analogies, and help. And this is not just around the core premise of “building a supercomputer”. Ada observes and has questions about interpersonal relationships, historical events, and more, as she’s trying to come to terms with senseless tragedy in her young life. Yes, that feels like… a lot. I promise you, there’s also plenty of soccer, dinners, and supercomputer-building to keep things light! Reading this novel reminded me of a younger self who was always intrigued by the next “why”. The interspersed message to “stay curious” is just so wholesome.
• It reminded me to be fearless in my personal & professional lives. In a way, the book left me striving to be the best parts of both Lizzie AND Ada. I would read the book and seriously think out loud: “SHOULD I BUILD CUBIX IN REAL LIFE?!” or “SHOULD I GET A TINY TATTOO BEHIND MY EAR?!” [No, and no: I like my day job, and I’m a total chicken when it comes to tiny needles 😊]. “SHOULD I GET A COOL CAPE?!” [Maybe. ::browses Amazon::]. I am fairly sure any STEM-loving woman in her mid-thirties who comes across this book will see herself, at least a little bit, in Lizzie. Ada’s aunt is, by all accounts, an incredibly accomplished scientist and entrepreneur. A total brainiac. But she’s also empathetic and self-sacrificing. The storyline suggests that in her 20s and 30s Lizzie had to trade off her personal for her professional life, but also her professional for her personal life. Yet she emerges from these challenges without a trace of bitterness or regret. Her core beliefs are her North Star; with those in place, I feel like this character can and will find her own path to success and happiness. Even if sometimes it involves wearing a fancy cape. Ada, on the other hand, is quite bitter for a twelve year old. Her reactions to the world are understandable — losing a mother at that age is a tragic and life-shaping event. Regardless, she still finds ways to move forward and move through. Even if sometimes it takes lashing out and getting a tiny tattoo behind your ear. Curiosity, ambition, and empathy guide Ada in very similar ways to how they guide her aunt Lizzie. I found myself wanting to integrate a bit of both of these characters into my daily life.
• It’s the debut of both the least and most likely author to write this book. I met Doris in high school. She, like me, moved to the States from Albania, and our families settled in Philadelphia. She graduated from MIT and has a PhD in Mathematics from NYU. Her professional career is more in line with “math genius turned finance wiz” than “fiction book author” so I was surprised that she’d written a work of fiction. Doris is more than her work though. She is a mom (to two adorable preschoolers!) an athlete, a loving spouse, sister, daughter, mentor, friend, an inquisitive person, and yes, a fiction writer! I came across this feature that Women in Mathematics at MIT recently published on her book, where they aptly call the book a “coming of age STEM novel”. I think the book is also a reflection of all the things Doris is in her real life. Hopefully it encourages you, the reader, to also bring the stories in your heart onto the page!
• It’s realistic. There’s no need to make huge leaps of faith or depart from feasible reality when reading Ada and the supercomputer. This book is not SciFi. There’s nothing supernatural in the storyline. At first, I was expecting the story would take a turn for where the supercomputer took over the world (#AI :)) or where some magical feature was needed to build it. It’s set in present day (even references the COVID -19 pandemic at a point) and all characters in it, while remarkable in their own ways, are very believable. Some version of these characters probably exists in the real world, and I thought that was neat.
• It’s educational. Wow, I did not expect to learn so many new concepts, as explained by a twelve year old and her loved ones. I will not give away anything, but I promise you this, reader: you 👏 will 👏 learn👏… and not even realize you’re learning new things. That’s the best part, it’s not heavy handed.
• It made me come to terms with my personal fears. Ok, this might not resonate with everyone. But this book deals in the theme of coping with loss, and loss sometimes feels senseless. You’ll learn early on in the story that Ada’s mom is recently deceased. I won’t spoil the book by sharing the cause of her untimely death, besides to mention that it involves 1) something of which I personally am terribly afraid, and 2) something of which I’m significantly weary. At first, I was upset by learning of the cause of Ada’s mom’s death — I don’t need fiction to worry me; real life already does! But following that story allowed me to go on my own parallel journey of coping and processing. And it was done with clarity and compassion, from the mind of a very smart tween. You as a reader might not end up with this level of connection, but if this storyline spoke to you, I hope it also allowed you to be a little less afraid of senseless terrible things that can happen in life.

All to say: go get the book already 😊! Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Book club discussion questions

If you do end up liking and reading this book, here’s a few book-club questions to get the conversation going! And if you don’t have a book club, remember, any meetup can be a book club :). If you’re reading this, you probably already know me IRL, so I’ll be your book club buddy — we’ll have virtual tea and cookies :)

Warning: Potential spoilers ahead.

1. Beyond Ada, many characters in this novel lose someone close to them. Ada’s dad Alan, Lizzie, Max, Nonna, Dora, all have experienced profound losses. Pick a character and describe how their losses have impacted their lives, and how they have come to terms with those losses. What can Ada learn from each?
2. What is the meaning of the color coding (orange, green) of the quotes in Lizzie’s walls?
3. The author explains a number of scientific and technology phenomena as part of the book. How does this add to the story? Is this book meant to be educational? What is one new thing you learned while reading a book?
4. Between her visit to MIT and the house party in NYC, Ada is exposed to Lizzies network of, for lack of a better word, “interesting intellectuals”. How do you think this impacts her worldview? Is this a realistic opportunity for most children?
5. Building a supercomputer was always supposed to be an “Ada and mom” project. How did building a supercomputer impact Ada’s relationship with her dad?
6. Building and using a supercomputer was secondary to the story. Do you think that’s intentional? How does this impact the storyline?
7. Making room for the pain of others (Max’s, Alan’s, Lizzie’s) and having empathy in the face of pain, was critical to Ada’s coming of age story. Why is that? Are there any parallels to this in your own life?
8. Why is it important that Ada is able to say “I love you” again, and why is Lizzie the first character to whom she can express this feeling?
9. “Broken doesn’t always have to mean weaker” — What does this phrase mean to you?
10. Ada needs to learn both resilience and empathy. She also needs to learn to voice her pain. It takes Ada a while to tell Max why she feels so guilty and responsible for her mother’s death. Why do you think that is? Does reading the book compel you to share more feelings with others in your life? Or do you stand by the argument that healing needs to happen in its own timeframe?

Ada, Lizzie, and the supercomputer, as rendered by DALL-E

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