Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 07/01/2017 Gr 6 Up–The creator of the nationwide coding club phenomenon Girls Who Code provides a top-down look into the world of computer science and women in the field. The author takes a step-by-step approach to teaching the intricacies of coding while keeping the content relevant to the audience (a smart analogy involving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich effectively demonstrates computational thinking). Aided by Tsurumi's humorous cartoon drawings that feature a reoccurring group of five girls, the text takes students through the entire process of a coding project. Saujani stresses the importance of planning, critical thinking, implementation, and debugging. Readers will enjoy the creative freedom the work offers, as sample projects refreshingly don't rely on specific programs. The author concisely explains different subject areas within computer science. A highlight of the book is the sidebar profiles that feature real-life women developing the world of coding, from Pixar's Danielle Feinberg to professor and roboticist Ayanna Howard. VERDICT This timely, well-written title is an excellent resource for budding coders; it bridges the wide gap between simple how-to guidebooks and complex coding textbooks.—Lisa Bosarge, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 08/01/2017 Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code (a national nonprofit organization that educates young women with computing skills), is on a mission to close the gender gap in technology. With the help of multicultural girls, represented in appealing tween- and teen-friendly cartoon images, the author introduces the concept of coding, some of its terminology, and its problem-solving process. Using a conversational tone and easy-to-understand examples (such as comparing coding to stringing different patterns of beads), she also explains numerous real-world applications of coding, including digital art, websites, mobile apps, animation, video games, and robots. The text does not teach specific coding skills or languages (although they are represented graphically), but readers who are studying these on their own will benefit from chapters on design, debugging, and other related topics. Particularly eye-opening are interviews with current female coders in high-tech fields and with the featured multicultural girls, all of whom describe projects on which they’ve worked. Above all, this book makes coding less intimidating and more inspiring to today’s young women. - Copyright 2017 Booklist.