Screen Queens

April 1, 2019
Three smart and tech-savvy teenage girls are teamed up at ValleyStart, the country's most prestigious high school tech incubator competition. The prize is an internship with Pulse, the ultimate app that calculates each user's level of influence across social media platforms. Palo Alto native Lucy Katz, a determined young socialite in the top percentile of her class, plans to elevate her unimpressive Pulse level and get into Stanford University with a win at ValleyStart. Maddie Li, a gifted graphic designer from Cambridge, Massachusetts, could care less about her Pulse score and is only at ValleyStart to build her portfolio. Shy Delia Meyer, a self-taught coder from Littlewood, Illinois, hopes that a Pulse internship will lead to a job that will not require an expensive college education. Upon their first meeting, the three feel incompatible. But the chance to become the first all-female team to win at ValleyStart raises the stakes, encouraging them to prove themselves in a male-dominated field and pave the way for other young women engineers. Predictably, all three fit a specific archetype--Lucy, the fearless leader; Maddie, the tough chick; Delia, the quiet X factor. But their teamwork and appreciation toward women entrepreneurs who came before them make this a welcome addition to the literature. Lucy is white and Jewish, Delia is white, and Maddie is half Irish/half Chinese. A fun and uplifting story that celebrates female friendship and empowerment. (Fiction. 12-18)

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