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Teaching Kids Coding, By the Book


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Girls Who Code CEO Reshma Saujani, right, working with a student at the Summer Immersion Program. Credit

Girls Who Code, an organization dedicated to teaching programming skills to young girls, has established a publishing imprint, and has arranged a deal with Penguin to release 13 books over the next two years.

Credit: Will Glaser/The New York Times

Girls Who Code aims to teach programming skills to young girls by establishing a publishing imprint, and has arranged a deal with Penguin to release 13 books over the next two years.

The nonprofit organization's first two books, issued this week, include an illustrated coding manual and a novel about friendship between girls in a coding club.

"I wanted to create a series of books that girls could see themselves in, where you could sneak in the algorithms and you sneak in the coding," says Girls Who Code CEO Reshma Saujani.

Girls Who Code joins similar efforts to counter the technology industry's underrepresentation of women, while also making inroads into an untapped market.

Some experts think books could be an effective tool for recruiting programmers, especially girls, if the stories make coding seem appealing and creative.

Some books are manuals geared for young children, while others are novels with coding concepts embedded within the narrative.

From The New York Times
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