You can’t be what you can’t see: Girls Who Code launches 13-book series with Penguin.
I’m the daughter of refugees. Growing up, my father used to take me to the local library to inspire and educate me about the endless opportunities I had as an American. It’s because of the books that I read at my local library that I learned about politics and decided to spend my life as a civil servant. Books have this incredible power to show us possibilities of a world that’s not yet our own.
The immigrant mentality is to work hard, be brave and never give up in your pursuit of achieving the American Dream. This mentality is what led to three rejections from Yale Law School before being accepted. It’s also what led me to run for Congress in 2010 in New York City. During the campaign, I would visit schools and see armies of boys learning to code, training to be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs. But in these rooms, girls were missing. And I thought to myself, where are all the girls? I lost the race, but my loss inspired me to start Girls Who Code and solve a problem that I believe is the most important issue of our country’s time.
Girls Who Code is building a pipeline of women in tech. In the past five years, we have quadrupled that pipeline by reaching over 40,000 girls. But we can reach so many more. We’re releasing a 13-book series with Penguin — the first two books are out now — as an invitation for girls everywhere to learn to code and change the world. These books include explanations of computer science concepts using real life examples; relatable characters and profiles of real women in tech. It’s one of the first times that the story of computer science has been told through so many girls’ voices.
We’re doing this because literary representation matters. One of the best ways to spark girls’ interest is to share stories of girls who look like them. We are all very familiar with the image of a male programmer in a hoodie. What we want to show are images of relatable girls, coding. Lucy, Maya, Sophie, Erin and Leila — the 5 characters that are featured throughout the series — represent the diversity and range of backgrounds of our girls who code across the US. Lucy loves science, music, video games, while Maya loves art & fashion. Sophia is into sports & selfies, Erin participates in theater & baking, and Leila loves robotics.
Computing jobs are the new American Dream, with demand growing 3X the national average in the US job market. Today alone there are 500,000 open jobs in computing. These jobs pay twice that of the average private sector job and are at the center of innovation and growth, and they’re not just in Silicon Valley. In fact, 91% of open software and computing jobs are outside of Silicon Valley: in Michigan there are 15,000 currently open jobs. In Virginia, 34,000. In Ohio, 15,000. Georgia, 20,000. Computing is where the jobs are — and where they will be in the future — but our daughters are being left behind. In 1995, women made up almost 40 percent of the computing workforce. Today? Less than 25 percent. According to research from Accenture, in 10 years, at the current rate, women’s representation in tech will be down to just 22 percent. With women making up more than 50% of college graduates and over 40% of our family’s breadwinners, we need to do something about bringing women into the tech workforce.
I know that this problem is solvable. Together, we can close the gender gap in tech. And, to do that we need everyone! Women, men, girls, boys, teachers, parents, non-parents, people who have never coded, everyone. You might not be a woman, or a girl, or even interested in coding, but you’re vital to this mission. We need all of our allies, fathers, brothers, friends. One time, I walked into a Girls Who Code classroom in Rochester and saw something I didn’t expect: men. So I asked them what they were doing, and they told me that they were the male allies group! Every time they noticed that the women were being ignored or put down, they made it their job to stand up for them. And that’s what men can do for women: they can support them, and they can make sure that their voices and ideas are heard.
Our hope is that a generation of American girls will see themselves in these characters and be inspired to learn to code, the same way I was inspired to become a civil servant by the books I read growing up. When you teach girls to code, they become change agents and can build apps, programs and movements to help tackle our country’s toughest problems.
Want to make a difference for a girl in your life? Order the fiction and nonfiction books here, and let them see for themselves what a girl who codes looks like.

