Member Reviews

Thank you NetGalley and Little. Brown Books for the ARC! This is a book I should have reviewed a while ago, but got away from me. I had the chance to visit it recently and this is sucj a charming book for the social age. Allie Navarro has designed a fun social game app CLICK'D during her time at CodeGirls summer camp and now has the opportunity to enter it into a contest for games that can create a benefit to society (her main competitor and classmate, Nathan has an app that helps build holmes by getting money from sponsers). Everything starts well enough with Allie's friends and classmates signing up for and enjoying the app, but when a glich is discovered that could sacrifice the privacy of participants, Allie must decide whether to let the app continue as is or take down features to fix what's wrong. With a great emphasis on friendship and STEM, CLICK'D is a great book for Middle Grade readers (though older readers can enjoy it as well).

Was this review helpful?

This book is fast-paced and timely for middle school students. It is jam-packed with lessons on integrity, friendship, and hope. Boys and girls will both enjoy this meaningful and cute book.

Was this review helpful?

Fun middle-grade novel that kept a good pace and was a quick read. Loved that the MC was a STEM girl and proud of it. It's nice to see.

Was this review helpful?

Kids 5th grade and up are going to enjoy this wild ride of a story! Allie creates a cool app that matches people by interests, but, oops! there a glitch! it can spill everyone's secrets unless she can fix it - and quickly! This is a fun story! I really dislike computers, but the kids enjoy them and understand and the issues about them. Funny, the younger the kids, the less concerned they seem to be about glitches....

Was this review helpful?

This is definitely a book kids can relate to as it focuses around technology and a new app that main character, Allie has created. It's gone viral and her schoolmates are loving it, until Allie discovers a coding problem that could share all her new friends secrets, but with a competition looming, will she have time to finish changes or will she not be able to compete at all? This is a story that kids will relate to as they play on their phones and tablets!

Was this review helpful?

Fast-paced and timely middle school story with a great technology premise.

Thanks to Disney Hyperion for the advance review copy of this title - all opinions are my own.

CLICK'D tells the story of a middle school coding superstar who develops an app at a summer coding camp and is surprised to have it become a smash hit when she debuts it at her school. Allie is a very relatable middle school character and this is written perfectly for the upper middle school crowd who live with their phones. There are lessons of integrity and friendship included in the story, but are in no way preachy, and the code-speak is appealing for techies but understandable for even only the end-users.

I will definitely be buying this one for my middle school library and can't wait to get it into the hands of my students! If you are looking for a similar book for younger readers, try the GIRLS WHO CODE series, and if you want something for older readers, WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI is perfect.

Was this review helpful?

While I definitely enjoyed my experience reading this book, there are some issues with pacing and character development in the middle that left me wanting just a bit more.

Was this review helpful?

Cute, relevant, real, and inspiring. Click’d has all the elements I look for in a middle-grade realistic fiction read. Great characters, strong plot, and realistic ending.

Was this review helpful?

I love everything that Stone writes, and Click'd is no different. Whenever I place it on display it often gets picked up.

Was this review helpful?

Wonderful, empowering STEM-positive story for the middle grade set. I loved the sweet story and character-driven plot. I can't recommend this book highly enough, Great for girls who need to be reminded they can do anything!

Was this review helpful?

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Alli's had an amazing summer at CodeGirls camp, and though she's excited to get back to her friends, she's also sad to be away from her new friends that get her coding excitement. While at camp, she built her own app CLICK'D to help people meet each other and make new friends. She knows her app will be successful in this year's youth coding contest, where she hopes to edge her competition and classmate Nathan. Allie's school friends are so excited to try CLICK'D they convince her to release it before the contest.

At first CLICK'D is great, and it's working exactly as Allie hoped, then the app seems to glitch. Allie has to decide if it's worth the risk of keeping the app live while trying to fix the glitch or shut it down and risk losing her new found popularity.

THOUGHTS: Click'd takes a look inside the mind of a girl who is trying to navigate friendship while figuring out what really matters to her. Readers will be subtly cautioned about content on their phones and what they post for all to see. This was a lighthearted and fun read that shows girls it's okay to like coding and be competitive.

Was this review helpful?

A cute little middle grade/young YA story that's a quick but enjoyable read. It's a generic tagline but it's also a little bit of a generic book. That's not a criticism, just a fact. This book isn't the next big thing, but it's not a slush pile escapee either. It's a quick simple story with a couple frills.

Was this review helpful?

Sixth grader Allie Navarro is SO excited about the friendship app she built at CodeGirls summer camp. Click'd collects data about user interests and sends users on a scavenger hunt to find other users with similar interests. It went over big at camp, and now Allie is going to show it to her BFFs at school. She's also presenting her game at the big Games for Good competition, but she's going up against her nemesis: Nathan Frederickson, who wins EVERY science fair and drives her crazy.

The app goes over in a big way, but it's not as great as Allie thought it would be. People are upset about their standings on friendship leaderboards, and a technical glitch ends up embarrassing one of her best friends. Things start spiraling out of Allie's control; even with Nathan's help, she's not sure if she can make things right in time for the competition.

I'm excited about the new coding fiction trend that's emerging in light of Girls Who Code's nonfiction/fiction releases! Click'd is great to hand to readers who may be ready to move on from the Girls Who Code series fiction, or readers who may not be ready for Lauren Myracle's TTYL books just yet. There's friendship drama for sure, as well as positive messages about resilience and friendship. Each chapter contains screenshots of the Click'd app, adding to the fun; readers can watch Allie's user count change, and monitor different leaderboards to better envision how the app works (and maybe get some ideas of their own). Tamara Ireland Stone gives us realistic characters and an interesting storyline and builds an extended universe of CodeGirls - girls who all met through a Girls Who Code-type camp - that will work for future novels.

Was this review helpful?

This was a good story about friendship and coding. Highly recommend.

Was this review helpful?

This new book on coding is phenomenal! Allie is a totally believable character--a young girl just trying to make a fun app to help her friends and all teens her age, but everything goes horribly wrong. I liked seeing all of her different friendships and how the app changed each one, including with Nathan. We need more books about code--and we need more books about girls who code! I can't wait to show this one off!

Was this review helpful?

Cute story about 7th grade coder girl who creates an app "to do good" for a competition. It's a viral success in the first week of school, but there is one small flaw, the competition is the first Saturday after school starts. Do you put your competition at risk to fix a privacy flaw?

MDL grade book, appropriate language, action, for audience. Would recommend to 6th-8th graders and I did book talk it last month at my local public Middle school. THEY LOVED IT!

Was this review helpful?

Tamara Ireland Stone's Click'd delivered on all of its blurb's promises: " . . . combines friendship, coding, and lots of popcorn in [this] fun and empowering middle-grade debut." Amen! Couldn't state that better myself so I didn't. 😄

Click'd is an engaging, girl-power, tech-driven MIDDLE GRADE novel with fun "extras" which are sure to please its target audience. I feel it is important to stress the "middle grade" classification of this novel as I have seen some reviewers classifying this as YA. MG teachers, parents, and students: PLEASE don't pass this book up thinking it's YA. I would allow my 5th grade students to read this novel also--there are no "possibly inappropriate scenes" involved in this story.

I loved the illustration of the Click'd app at the beginning of each chapter to recap what has happened thus far. I have a love-hate relationship with the fact that this includes pictures of all of our "main" characters, though. On the one hand, it gives me a face in my head of what these characters look like (sometimes even with the author description, I have an entirely incorrect version of what they were going for 😂); however, it takes away the reader's ability to imagine their own version of the characters. You decide. I loved it!

I loved that the protagonist is a female coder!!! Many tech-driven novels feature male protagonists. Not this one. Girl power! That being said, I feel this is still a novel that males will also enjoy. It's not written for a female-only audience.

The topics of friendship and digital citizenship are explored throughout and I feel that these both are SO IMPORTANT for this age group. No central topics of romance for our protagonist. There is a couple that "like" each other and start hanging out as a result of using the app; however, they are not our main characters and again, there are no "possibly inappropriate scenes" here. Perfectly acceptable to hand to your youngest MG audience.

There are some additional "extras" at the end of the novel as well: 1) instructions for making "binary bracelets" and 2) directions for a "dice race game". This allows for extended enjoyment of coding after the novel is read.

LOVED Tamara Ireland Stone's debut MG! Thank you, Netgalley and Disney Book Group, for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Was this review helpful?

I absolutely adored this middle school novel about a girl who goes to coding camp and creates an app that spirals out if her control. Unfortunately, she has to iron out the kinks if she wants to win a competition and have her app recognized amongst adults in the tech world. The reason I love this book is because it deals with friendship, bullying, and all the other drama you see in middle school, but it also teaches resilience and the importance of having the right support network.

Was this review helpful?

Really enjoyable if not a bit too predictable in most places. The story is pretty solid from a technical perspective, and the games described seem like they could be legitimate. Mostly though, it’s a story of bad decisions and their implications. Without expressly stating it, I think Allie learned enough from her experiences not to repeat them. Hopefully, the lessons flow through to readers as implicitly as they did to the characters. The structure and pacing make it an easy read, while the story itself is fun and accessible to all ages. Recommend!

Was this review helpful?

What first appears to be the perfect app goes terribly wrong for Allie! While at a summer coding camp, Allie Navarro develops an app to help her peers make connections to other kids with similar interests. While tremendously successful at first, the app to help others find friends ends up causing rifts in friendships. When Allie discovers a major glitch in her app, she is forced to make a difficult decision.

An enjoyable story that brings together coding and friendship! Allie's struggles are relatable - like many her age she wants to be popular, but she deals with the ethical issues of the privacy glitch of the app that got her noticed to begin with. The characters are realistic as are the situations they deal with. A fun read that combines technology with friendship.

Was this review helpful?