Synopsis
Allie Navarro can’t wait to show her best friends the app she built at CodeGirls summer camp. CLICK’D pairs users based on common interests and sends them on a fun (and occasionally rule-breaking) scavenger hunt to find each other. And it’s a hit. By the second day of school, everyone is talking about CLICK’D.
Watching her app go viral is amazing. Leaderboards are filling up! Everyone’s making new friends. And with all the data Allie is collecting, she has an even better shot at beating her archenemy, Nathan, at the upcoming youth coding competition. But when Allie discovers a glitch that threatens to expose everyone’s secrets, she has to figure out how to make things right, even if that means sharing the computer lab with Nathan. Can Allie fix her app, stop it from doing any more damage, and win back the friends it hurt-all before she steps on stage to present CLICK’D to the judges?
New York Times best-selling author Tamara Ireland Stone combines friendship, coding, and lots of popcorn in her fun and empowering middle-grade debut.
Review
I LOVED this book on many levels. I loved that the author is a computer geek and brings that out in her main character, Allie. Allie is only 12 but has already created an app that could take off by leaps and bounds and help those awkward new students at school find friends. Allie has been coding programs for several years by this point and I think that message to all young women out there is a strong one = that math and sciences are just as easy for females to conquer as their male counterparts.
But beyond that message, there is also a message about friendship. That no app can truly decide who your best friends will be or who you will “click” with via this app, but it is a start especially in an unfamiliar situation. It is also about perseverance and working hard to get where you are in life, even at the age of 12.
I would recommend this book to any young woman 10 and up (possibly a bit younger) and even to adults like myself so that we can continue to encourage young women in STEM.
We give it 5 paws up
About the Author
TAMARA IRELAND STONE is the author of Time and Time Again, a collection of her two novels Time Between Us and Time After Time, and the New York Times best seller Every Last Word.
A Silicon Valley-native, she has worked in the technology industry all her life, first testing Atari game boards in her parents’ garage, and later, co-founding a woman-owned marketing strategy firm, where she worked with small startups as well as some of the world’s largest software companies. She enjoys skiing, music, movies, and spending time with her husband and two children. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Want a chuckle? Check out the Top 10 things about Tamara
