Click'd

Allie just spent an amazing summer at Code Girls camp making friends and coding apps.  Click'd is the result of her efforts.  It's a game that helps you find new friends.  Her demo at the end of Code Girls went so well that her teacher and mentor, Ms. Slade, has invited her to be part of Games 4 Good, an elite competition for young coders. 

As school starts, Allie is excited to reconnect with her friends and to share Click'd.  At first, she just shares the game with a small group of friends, but they love it so much, their enthusiasm makes her want to share Click'd with everyone.  Within a day, Click'd is a sensation at Mercer Middle School.  Things are going great, and people are Clicking all over school. 

But then a glitch in the game reveals private information about one of her friends, and it could happen to others.  Allie knows she should shut it down if she can't find a solution, but she just can't stand to do it.

Can Allie fix Click'd in time to compete and save her friendships?  Read the book to find out!  I really enjoyed Tamara Ireland Stone's middle grade book about friendship and coding.  Kids who are interested in coding will love it, but it's also a great story about friendship and hard work.  It's great to have a story about a girl working hard to accomplish her goals and not worrying about romance.  Romance is fine, but we don't always need a romance subplot.  Recommended.

The Magician and the Spirits

Deborah Noyes's biography of Harry Houdini focuses on the famous magician's thirty-year investigation of spiritualism and psychic phenomena.  Noyes rounds out the biography with brief information about Houdini's childhood and early career, but the real story here is the rise of spiritualism, the various methods employed by spirit mediums, and Houdini's dedication to debunking the movement. 

This was a fascinating read (perhaps more so because I was coincidentally reading a fiction book set during the same time period with a spiritualist subplot) with brief biographies of important players in the spiritualist movement, how they pulled off their seances and a deft explanation of why people took spiritualism to heart.

Noyes also threads in the story of Houdini's friendship/rivalry with Arthur Conan Doyle, a staunch believer in spiritualism.  Ultimately, their friendship fell apart because though they both wanted to believe in communication with the dead, Doyle refused to the see the truth, and Houdini could only see the tricks.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable read.  Highly recommended!