The Friendship Code #1

Strong, Determined, Supportive, Aspiring Coders!

I. Love. This. Book. As Reshma Saujani, founder of the organization Girls Who Code, poignantly explains in the book's preface - there exists a need for stories such as this because "You can't be what you can't see." If children don't have access to stories of people who look like them doing things like joining a coding club or designing a computer game for our classmates to play, then we don't know that opportunities like this are available to us or to even seek these opportunities in the first place. I joked to a friend that I wish this series had been available twenty years ago for me because perhaps then I would have aspired to something more than becoming the head honcho of a babysitting empire. Or at least I would have created a babysitting app in my quest for child-watching domination. (No disrespect, Ann M. Martin!) But in all seriousness, go buy this series NOW for the young children in your life (note: I did not just say "girls"). Not only do you learn about some of the basic principles of coding: input/output, loops, variables, but you get to learn it in an exciting, mystery-based format! You learn that coding can be for everyone and opportunities are endless; it can be for the fashionista, the sports fan, the girl hoping to help a family member, the shy girl at a new school; it can be used for something as fun as to prank a sibling or as serious as reminding a loved one dealing with illness to take their many medications. The other major reason I fell for this book is the personalities of and relationships between girls contained within its pages. The girls are, in a large part, sure of themselves and determined to get what they want. When they are uncertain about something, rather than sulk in indecision, they *GASP* say what they are thinking out loud and solve the problem with conversation, owning up, and collaborating. There is no silly drama or obsessing over crushes. It is a tale of some killer young ladies communicating, having each others backs...